ppilliflppflilpd  lli^i^^ 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
AT  LOS  ANGELES 


I 


UNIVERSITY  of  CALIFORNIA 
AT 
LOSANGELBSI    ^ 
LIBRARY 


MODERN   ESSAYS 


SELECTED   AND   EDITED 
BY 

JOHN  MILTOX   BEEDAN,   Ph.D. 

ASSISTANT   PROFESSOR   OF   ENGLISH   IN    YALE    COLLEGE 

JOHN   RICHIE   SCHULTZ,   M.A. 

INSTRUCTOR    IN    ENGLISH   IN    YALE    COLLEGE 
AND 

HEWETTE  ELWELL   JOYCE,   B.A. 

ASSISTANT    INSTRUCTOR   IN    ENGLISH    IN   YALE    COLLEGE 


I      » 


«»    ojj    Oj,  <j: 


.  i3H!t  JT! 

THE   MACMILLAN  COMPANY 
1916 

All  rights  reserved 


COPTEIGHT,    1915, 

By  the  MACMILLAN  COMPANY. 


Set  up  and  electrotyped.     Published  April,  1915.      Reprinted 
January,  August,  1916. 


I        IK 


C  *     *  ■ 


Norfaooli  ?3re2B 

J.  8.  Cushiug  Co.  —  lierwirk  &  Smith  Co. 

Norwood,  Mass.,  U.S.A. 


4  710 


ivl 


V 


PREFACE 

In  the  difficult  problem  of  teaching  the  principles  of 
exposition,  the  need  of  a  volume  of  illustrations  to  accom- 
pany the  rhetoric  has  been  increasingly  felt.  These  illus- 
trations, moreover,  if  the  student  is  to  write  an  essay, 
rather  than  a  bundle  of  paragraphs,  should  themselves  be 
complete  essays.  And  if  the  student  is  to  learn  to  write 
naturally,  it  seems  logical  that  the  essays  should  be 
chosen  from  the  writers  of  his  own  time.  For,  no  mat- 
ter how  perfect  theoretically  may  be  the  "  style  "  of  the 
Spectator,  the  fact  remains  that,  as  Addison  lived  in  the 
$1  early  eighteenth  century,  such  a  paper  to-day  would  be 
an  anachronism.  This  is  not  a  statement  of  preference  ; 
it  is  a  statement  of  fact.     In  the  following  pages,  there- 

^  fore,  the  essays  selected  are  taken  from  contemporarj'' 
authors,  the  great  majority  of  whom  are  still  alive.  Still 
more,  they  are  among  the  most  able  writers  of  the  age. 

"  To  enable  both  teacher  and  pupil  to  estimate  the  relative 
•^  reputation  of  each,  short  biographical  accounts  are  ap- 
pended in  the  index.  Each  author  here,  then,  has  some- 
thing worth  while  to  tell  his  age.  The  question  is  not  of 
the  truth  or  the  validity  of  his  statements.  The  com- 
pilers of  this  volume  assume  no  responsibility  for  the 
opinions  expressed.  The  essays  were  chosen  because  in 
their  opinion  the  author  succeeded  in  saying  forcibly  what 
he  wished  to  say  ;  the  emphasis  is  on  the  form,  not  on 


vi  PREFACE 

the  facts  ;  on  the  method,  not  the  content.  The  student, 
by  analyzing  these  methods,  will  be  enabled  to  express 
his  own  ideas. 

In  the  following  pages,  also,  will  be  found  a  wide  range 
both  in  treatment  and  in  subject  matter.  None  of  these 
essays  is  recommended  as  a  perfect  model,  nor  have  the 
editors  the  hallucination  that  they  have  selected  the 
"  best  "  essays  in  the  English  language.  Each  has  been 
selected,  ho\yever,  because  in  their  opinion  it  offered  a 
suggestive  treatment  for  its  particular  subject  and  its 
particular  audience.  And  each,  of  course,  has  the  defects 
of  its  qualities.  Although  the  epigrammatic  brilliance  of 
Whistler  is  as  far  removed  as  the  poles  from  the  closely 
coordinated  reasoning  of  Professor  Sumner,  yet  each  suc- 
ceeded in  the  particular  object  for  which  it  was  designed. 
The  value,  therefore,  of  a  sympathetic  study  of  such  a 
collection  is  for  the  student  to  perceive  clearly  exactly 
what  in  each  case  is  gained  and  what  is  lost,  in  order  that 
he  may  profit  in  his  own  work.  In  the  hope  that  he  may 
be  aided  to  this  end,  brief  notes  are  prefixed  to  each 
essay,  suggesting  the  scope  and  limitations  of  the  type. 
And  to  the  whole  a  general  theoretical  introduction  has 
been  prefixed,  to  explain  the  point  of  view. 

The  editors  take  pleasure  in  acknowledging  their  in- 
debtedness to  the  various  authors  who  have  so  generously 
given  permission  for  the  use  of  their  essays  and  who,  by 
many  helpful  suggestions,  have  aided  greatly  in  making 
the  selection.  Their  thanks  arc  due  also  to  the  following 
publishers,  who  have  very  kindly  permitted  the  use  of 
valuable  copyrighted  material :  D.  Appleton  and  Com- 
pany, The  Century  Company,  Dodd,  Mead  and  Com- 
pany, George  H.  Doran  Company,  Harper  and  Brothers, 
John  Lane  Company,  Longmans,  Green,  and  Company, 


PREFACE  vii 

The  Macmillan  Company,  G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons,  Charles 
Scribner's  Sons,  Frederick  A.  Stokes  Company,  The  New 
York  Sun,  The  Yale  University  Press  ;  to  the  editors  of 
The  Yale  Review  and  of  The  Yale  Alumni  Weekly,  for 
permission  to  reprint;  and  to  Miss  Clara  B.  Underwood 
and  Mr.  Hamilton  J.  Smith,  for  assistance  in  reading 
proof. 


TABLE   OF  CONTENTS 

PAGK 

Introduction 1 

"Ten  O'clock" f    11 

James  McNeill  Whistler 

Tact 29 

Sir  John  Lubbock,  Lord  Avebury 

^Book-buying 41 

Augustine  Birrell 

^Alexander  Hamilton 47 

Frederic  Harrison 

/ 

'^Salad '52 

'    Charles  Sears  Baldwin 

y  Words  that  Laugh  and  Cry 55 

Charles  Anderson  Dana 

National  Characteristics  as  Moulding  Public  Opinion     59 
James  Bryce 

-J^American  Manners 75 

y  Wu  Tingfang 

Franklin 88 

Henry  Cabot  Lodge 

The  Serious  Pepys 101 

Wilbur  Cortez  Abbott 

ix 


X  TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 

FAOX 

What  the  Ten-year  Sergeant  of  Police  Tells  •        .     131 
Henry  Hastings  Curran 

The  Powers  of  the  President 152 

William  Hoioard  Tuft 

John  Greenleaf  Whittier 173 

George  Edward  Woodberry 

Thackeray's  Centenary 187 

Henry  Augustine  Beers 

Tennyson SOI 

Paul  Elmer  More 

Realism  and  Reality  in  Fiction 229 

William  Lyon  Phelps 

Teaching  English 241 

Henry  Seidel  Canby 

Edward  Gibbon 257 

James  Ford  Rhodes 

The  Mildness  of  the  Yellow  Press        ....    292 

Gilbert  Keith  Chesterton 

\ 

A    What  is  Education? 303 

Charles  Macomb  Flandrau  '* 

Why  a  Classic  is  a  Classic 312^ 

Arnold  Bennett 

Homer  and  the  Study  of  Greek 318 

Andrew  Lang 

Homer  and  Humbug,  An  Academic  Discussion     .       <£_^i!^ 
Stephen  Leacock 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS  xi 

PAGE 

^On    the    Case    of    a    Certain    Man    Who    is    Neveu 

Thought  of 341 

William  Graham  Sumner 

The  Training  of  Intellect 349 

Woodrow  Wilson 

The  Responsibility  of  Authors 359 

Sir  Oliver  Lodge 

Filial  Relations 369 

Jane  Addams 

-^The  Irony  of  Nature 387'* 

Richard  Burton 

^  On  Seeing  Ten  Bad  Plays 392 

Frank  Moore  Colby 

A  Stepdaughter  of  the  Prairie 399 

Margaret  Lynn 

Yosemite 4Ll 

Arthur  Colton 


\s 


The  Bowery  and  Bohemia c^  422 

Henry  Cuyler  Bunner 

Evolution 437 

John  Galsworthy 

BIOGRAPHICAL  INDEX .443 


INTRODUCTION 

To  a  teacher  of  rhetoric,  or  written  composition,  there 
are  two  factors  in  relation  to  the  subject  that  seem  of  par- 
amount interest.  The  first  is  the  great  popularity  that  it 
at  present  enjoys  in  educational  institutions.  Books  deal- 
ing with  it  in  whole  or  part  —  rhetorics,  manuals,  guides  — 
pour  daily  from  the  press.  No  publisher  seems  really 
respectable  without  at  least  one  upon  his  list,  and  large 
firms  carry  several.  The  demand  for  this  sort  of  book 
seems  inexhaustible.  But  just  here  comes  the  second  fac- 
tor, that  among  trained  writers  there  exists  a  definite  hostil- 
ity toward  the  subject.  Nor  is  this  hostility  merely  nega- 
tive. It  is  quite  conceivable  that  to  the  advanced  writer, 
who  has  forgotten  his  own  youth,  the  elementary  stages 
might  seem  a  waste  of  time.  But  this  is  not  the  attitude. 
In  an  editorial  in  a  great  modern  periodical,  the  impression 
was  conveyed  that  certain  work  had  "  a  deftness  and  power 
such  as  college  instruction  can  never  give."  A  subsequent 
editorial,  in  which  this  statement  was  emphasized,  adds  the 
limitation  that  "there  are  some  men  strong  enough  to  sur- 
vive even  the  ' composition  course'  of  our  modern  colleges." 
This  is  not  merely  negative,  this  is  positive.  In  the  opin- 
ion of  the  editors  of  that  periodical  the  composition  course 
in  a  modern  college  is  not  only  a  waste  of  time,  it  is  actually 
hurtful.  Nor  is  that  particular  editor  alone  in  his  belief. 
And  to  a  teacher  of  the  subject  it  is  scarcely  a  bracing 
thought  that  those  that  feel  thus  about  his  work  are  apt 
to  be  themselves  very  able  writers ! 


2  MODERN  ESSAYS 

What  is  the  explanation  of  this  apparent  paradox  ?  It 
seems  to  me  that  the  reason  Hes  in  the  type  of  teaching 
done  in  the  name  of  rhetoric.  An  author,  or  a  teacher, 
devises  certain  rules  that  he  gives  to  the  students  both  as 
guides  to  composition  and  as  criteria  for  judgment.  One 
may  feel  that  the  "split  infinitive"  is  the  mark  of  a  lost 
soul ;  another  may  see  all  salvation  in  the  placing  of  com- 
mas; the  third  may  feel  that  the  proper  use  of  "only" 
differentiates  the  sheep  from  the  goats.  The  value  of  such 
tests  is  that  they  are  easy  of  application.  This  explains 
the  irritation  of  the  professional  writer  when  dealing  with  a 
cub  fresh  from  the  class  room.  He  finds  his  brilliant  work 
condemned  because  of  imaginary  improprieties,  and  he  feels 
that  the  college  has  debauched  the  lad  by  teaching  him  to 
lay  major  stress  upon  minor  detail.  The  story  is  told  of 
Leonardo,  that  when  his  pupils  were  called  in  to  see  the 
completed  picture  of  the  Last  Supper,  they  fell  in  ecstasies 
over  the  tracery  on  the  border  of  the  tablecloth.  Whereat 
the  angry  artist,  with  a  sweep  of  his  brush,  annihilated 
the  beautiful  tracery,  exclaiming,  "Fools!  look  at  the 
Master's  face!"  Is  it  not  possible  that  our  pupils  also 
have  been  trained  to  see  only  the  tracery  ?  Has  not  much 
of  our  criticism  been  destructive,  rather  than  constructive, 
our  teaching  what  to  avoid,  rather  than  how  to  do  ? 

In  the  country  at  large,  however,  there  seem  to  be  rather 
hazy  notions  concerning  even  the  aim  of  such  a  course. 
When  the  pupil  is  asked  why  he  has  elected  this  subject, 
the  almost  invariable  reply  is  that  he  wishes  to  learn  how 
to  express  himself.  But  this  is  scarcely  accurate.  Mere 
self-expression  is  vocal.  When  one  unexpectedly  hits  his 
thumb  with  a  hammer,  the  first  impluse  is  not  to  seize  pen 
and  paper,  —  it  is  to  say  something  !  The  act  of  writing, 
then,  presupposes  more  than  the  simple  desire  for  self-ex- 


INTRODUCTION  3 

pression ;  it  assumes  a  desire  to  transmit  the  writer's 
thoughts  and  emotions  to  another.  The  sentence  is  a 
medium  of  communication  between  two  individuals  as 
surely  as  is  a  telephone  wire.  And  the  self-expression 
theory  fails  to  account  for  the  person  at  the  other  end. 
Thus  the  fact  that  a  given  piece  is  written  posits  for  that 
piece  two  parties,  the  author  and  the  reader.  Even  the 
most  private  diary  is  composed  to  be  read,  although  by 
the  writer,  yet  by  the  writer  changed  by  a  lapse  of  time. 
If  this  be  true  in  so  purely  personal  a  matter,  much  more 
so  is  it  true  in  any  writing  intended  to  be  published. 
Obviously  there  the  reader  must  be  considered. 

But  with  the  introduction  of  the  reader-element  into 
the  theory,  a  number  of  new  deductions  must  be  made. 
And  the  first  of  these  is  that  in  judging  any  work  it  is  the 
opinion  of  the  reader,  not  that  of  the  author,  that  counts. 
In  fact,  the  author  is  apt  to  be  the  worst  judge  of  his  own 
work.  He  knows  what  he  has  wished  to  say,  and  in  the 
thrill  of  creation  feels  that  he  has  said  it.  He  is  neces- 
sarily partial.  But  the  measure  of  his  success  or  failure  is 
seen  only  in  its  effect  upon  the  reader.  In  spite  of  the 
numerous  canons  of  criticism,  devised  to  enable  an  author 
to  write  perfectly,  the  reader  remains  the  master  of  the 
situation,  and  works  written  by  rule  are  deemed  splendidly 
null  and  thrown  on  the  scrap  heap.  Here,  then,  is  an 
axiom  in  the  teaching  of  composition.  Stress  positives 
rather  than  negatives.  One  do  is  worth  ten  donts.  Ex- 
plain to  the  pupil  how  to  get  his  effect ;  avoid  making  him 
memorize  faults.  And,  if  possible,  enable  him  to  see  the 
effect  of  his  work  upon  a  class  of  his  own  contemporaries. 
Composition  so  taught  ceases  to  be  an  abstract  terror,  and 
becomes  both  vital  and  practical. 

But  if  the  study  of  composition  is  to  be  vital,  each  partic- 


4  MODERN  ESSAYS 

ular  theme  must  be  alive,  that  is,  it  must  be  interesting. 
The  unpardonable  sin  in  writing  is  dullness.  But  since,  to 
make  a  subject  interesting  to  others,  you  must  first  be 
interested  in  it  yourself,  it  is  better  to  allow  pupils  to 
choose  the  subjects  for  their  own  themes.  Each  pupil  is 
then  confronted  with  a  definite  problem.  And  the  teacher 
has  a  real  basis  for  criticism,  because  of  the  very  fact  that 
supposedly  the  writer  was  himself  interested.  By  this 
means,  also,  the  pupil  learns  to  discriminate  between  the 
encyclopedic  collection  of  unrelated  facts  and  an  article 
where  all  material  is  subordinated  to  a  predetermined  end, 
by  watching  the  efl^ect  of  both  on  the  members  of  the  class. 
He  realizes  that  an  "easy"  subject  is  not  the  one  on  which 
he  can  pour  forth  an  undigested  mass  of  irrelevant  mate- 
rial, but  rather  the  one  with  which  he  can  make  a  definite 
appeal.  He  learns  practically  the  truth  of  the  proverb 
that  easy  writing  makes  hard  reading.  And  he  begins 
his  long  apprenticeship  in  the  art  of  composition. 

Thus  not  the  least  for  the  pupil  to  learn  is  that  interest 
is  more  apt  to  lie  in  the  treatment  than  in  the  choice  of  the 
subject.  Although  certainly  some  topics  are  inherently 
more  interesting  than  are  others,  there  are  very  few  that 
cannot  be  ruined  by  clumsy  handling.  And  of  those  few 
rarely  are  any  in  the  possession  of  the  college  undergrad- 
uate !  If  he  is  to  hold  the  attention  of  the  class,  he  will 
realize  that  he  must  do  that  not  by  what  he  writes,  but  by 
the  manner  in  which  he  writes.  Thus  there  is  no  one  way  to 
write.  Every  piece  of  written  work  represents  an  equation 
with  three  unknown  quantities,  the  personality  of  the  au- 
thor, the  peculiarity  of  the  subject,  and  th6  presumed  point 
of  view  of  the  imagined  reader.  The  first  is  only  the  old 
philosophical  maxim.  Know  thyself.  He  must  learn  the 
excellences  and  the  limitations  of  his  own  mind,  what  he 


INTRODUCTION  5 

can  do  and  what  he  had  better  let  alone.  And  this  can 
be  learned  only  through  long  and  painful  practice.  The 
second  and  the  third  are  obviously  more  variable.  The 
interest  in  a  subject  like  "The  Making  of  Bricks,"  for 
example,  is  narrowly  circumscribed,  and  appeals  only  to  a 
limited  public.  Theoretically  such  a  subject  can  be  best 
treated  with  perfect  clarity.  Yet  here  the  question  of  the 
public  must  be  considered.  It  is  quite  comprehensible 
that  to  an  association  of  brick  makers,  the  subject  might 
be  one  of  intense  interest.  But  equally  for  such  an  asso- 
ciation the  treatment  should  be  technical.  This  same 
reason  applies  equally  to  every  possible  composition.  An 
editorial,  if  it  be  a  successful  editorial,  should  differ  radi- 
cally in  tone  from  that  of  an  essay  on  the  same  subject 
in  a  magazine,  because  the  attention  of  the  readers  of  the 
newspaper  is  distracted  and  fragmentary,  whereas  the 
magazine  can  assume  comparative  leisure  and  quiet.  An 
academic  address  is  rightfully  different  in  the  nature  of 
its  appeal  from  a  popular  essay.  What  is  right  for  the 
one  would  be  wrong  for  the  other. 

In  general,  the  prime  object  of  all  expository  writing 
may  be  said  to  be  clarity,  that  the  reader  after  he  has 
finished  may  know  exactly  what  the  author  intended.  The 
simplest  form,  therefore,  resembles  a  catalogue,  wherein 
the  author  says  I  think  so-and-so  because  of  (a),  (b),  (c), 
etc.  It  is  definite  and  clear,  but  it  also  lacks  interest. 
That  must  be  sought  by  the  individual  treatment  of  each 
factor,  and  the  value  of  the  whole  depends  upon  the  com- 
prehensiveness of  the  list.  Emphasis  may  to  a  measure 
be  attained  by  a  careful  gradation  of  the  various  factors, 
the  most  important  reserved  to  the  last.  At  the  worst, 
this  type  of  essay  separates  into  a  number  of  disjointed 
paragraphs,  or  even  sentences,  bound  together  merely  by 


6  MODERN  ESSAYS 

the  fact  that  they  all  treat  of  a  common  subject.  Thus 
the  reason  why  much  of  Emerson  is  such  hard  reading  is 
not  that  his  thought  is  so  profound,  but  that  the  sequence 
of  his  thought  is  not  expressed,  and  sometimes  is  non- 
existent. Consequently,  the  effect  of  the  essay  as  a  whole 
is  lost.  On  the  other  hand,  the  value  of  this  method  of 
composition  lies  in  the  suggestiveness  of  the  individual 
sentence,  or  the  individual  paragraph.  And  as  the  student 
presumably  has  neither  the  brilliance  of  Whistler,  the 
profundity  of  Emerson,  or  the  analytic  power  of  Bryce, 
therein  lies  the  danger.     Yet  it  is  the  normal  form. 

Surer  of  its  effect  than  the  catalogue  form,  and  yet  more 
difficult  to  write,  is  that  type  of  essay  wherein  the  thought 
either  starts  with  a  generalization  in  the  first  paragraph 
and  narrows  to  a  particular  in  the  last,  or,  on  the  contrary, 
starts  with  a  particular  in  the  first  paragraph  and  expands 
in  the  last  to  a  generalization.  Either  of  these  forms  as- 
sumes that  the  whole  essay  has  been  conceived  as  a  unit, 
that  before  the  first  word  is  written  the  last  is  clearly  in 
mind,  —  in  short,  in  Walter  Pater's  words,  "that  archi- 
tectural conception  of  work,  which  foresees  the  end  in  the 
beginning  and  never  loses  sight  of  it,  and  in  every  part  is 
conscious  of  all  the  rest,  till  the  last  sentence  does  but, 
with  undiminished  vigour,  unfold  and  justify  the  first." 
This  quality  of  "mind  in  style"  is  obviously  powerful,  as 
Mr.  Pater  himself  has  shown.  It  is  an  ideal  to  be  held 
before  the  young  writer.  The  difficulty  here  is,  however, 
that  it  presupposes  not  only  a  trained  mind  in  the  writer, 
but  also  a  trained  mind  in  the  reader.  Both,  to  appre- 
ciate the  bearing  of  the  last  sentence,  must  be  conscious 
of  all  preceding  sentences  back  to  the  first.  There  must 
be  no  trifling  by  the  way.  And  unless  the  reader  is  willing 
to  surrender  himself  completely,   there  is  the  unhappy 


INTRODUCTION  7 

possibility  that  he  will  never  arrive  at  the  last  unfolding 
sentence !  Yet  for  the  chosen  reader,  compared  to  this 
all  other  forms  seem  futile. 

But  not  only  is  the  question  of  the  form  in  which  the 
thought  is  to  be  cast  to  be  considered,  there  is  also  the 
problem  of  the  development  of  the  thought  within  the 
form.  Here  the  student  must  watch  the  value  of  the  con- 
crete versus  the  abstract,  the  utility  of  the  illustration, 
and  the  necessity  for  its  restraint.  And  as  these  prin- 
ciples hold  equally  whether  the  composition  be  written  or 
merely  verbal,  this  is  particularly  valuable  for  those  con- 
sidering the  profession  of  teaching.  Thus  as  the  concrete 
is  interesting  and  may  always  be  safely  relied  on  to  attract 
the  attention  of  the  class,  to  what  extent  may  it  be  used 
without  destroying  the  emphasis  of  the  whole  ?  In  a  lec- 
ture on  the  catholicity  of  Lamb's  friendships,  for  example, 
how  much  space  may  be  given  to  his  acquaintance  with 
Wainwright  who  combined  the  professions  of  author  and 
poisoner.^  There  is  no  doubt  that  with  but  little  skill 
the  class  or  the  reader  will  be  interested  in  Wainwright's 
performances,  —  only  the  nominal  subject.  Lamb,  tends 
to  be  obscured  in  the  process.  Yet  surely  within  limits 
such  an  appeal  is  justifiable.     What  are  the  limits  ? 

A  somewhat  analogous  problem  is  the  use  of  the  first 
person.  There  is  a  freshness  and  a  vitality  in  the  treat- 
ment of  a  subject  where  the  first  person  appears.  As  I 
write  this,  I  am  aware  of  a  sympathetic  connection  with 
you  that  read  it.  Not  to  make  use  of  this  obvious  advan- 
tage seems  absurd,  and  yet  it  was  with  pride  that  a  friend 
of  mine,  on  giving  me  his  book,  assured  me  that  the  pro- 
noun "I"  did  not  appear  once.  As  the  thought  in  the 
book  was  his  thought,  there  was  no  reason  why  he  should 
not  have  said  so.     The  danger,  however,  of  the  wearisome 


8  MODERN   ESSAYS 

repetition  of  that  objectionable  pronoun  is  that  the  effect 
will  be  one  of  disgusting  egotism.  The  student  that 
continually  writes  in  the  first  person  often  trips  on  his  own 
shadow.  In  the  same  way,  the  narrative  of  course  may 
be  used  for  expository  content,  but  the  writer  must  beware 
lest  the  result  be  a  hybrid,  neither  a  story  nor  an  essay, 
but  an  amorphous  creation  possessing  the  disadvantages  of 
both  and  the  advantages  of  neither.  And  the  only  way 
he  can  learn  to  handle  it  is  by  study  and  practice. 

It  was  with  the  aim  of  furnishing  examples  to  illustrate 
such  problems  as  these  that  the  present  book  was  com- 
piled. There  is  no  desire  here  to  supersede  the  study  of 
formal  rhetoric,  rather  to  supplement  it.  Within  the 
last  few  years  the  revival  of  an  interest  in  essays  haS 
carried  the  practice  far  beyond  the  bounds  of  the  old  reg- 
ulation type  of  exposition,  represented  by  "How  to  make 
a  boat."  In  life,  and  it  should  be  in  college,  there  is  little 
demand  for  the  biographical  essay  where  the  industry  of 
the  author  is  in  inverse  proportion  to  the  quantity  of  his 
facts.  And  when  payment  for  an  article  is  based  upon 
the  number  of  words,  omission  becomes  elevated  to  a  high 
art.  Too  long  has  our  college  teaching  debauched  our 
students  into  believing  that  a  mere  flux  of  words  is  in  it- 
self meritorious.  The  question  that  the  students  should 
ask  is,  not  how  long  must  it  be,  but  how  long  may  it  be, 
and,  provided  always  that  the  desired  aim  is  accomplished, 
brevity  should  be  considered  a  cardinal  virtue.  This 
means  that  the  student  should  take  the  shortest  route 
to  his  desired  end,  —  namely,  to  transmit  his  thought  and 
his  emotions  to  his  reader.  And  since  in  a  free  country 
there  is  no  method  of  compelling  the  reader,  the  question 
of  interest  becomes  paramount. 


MODERN  ESSAYS 


"TEN  O'CLOCK"! 

BY 

James  McNeill  Whistler 


\ 


James  McNeill  Whistler,  an  American,  one  of  the  most  eminent  and 
most  original  of  contemporary  artists,  was  asked  by  the  University  of  Ox- 
ford to  deliver  the  following  address  explaining  his  theory  of  art.  Here 
the  sentence  is  the  unit  of  structure.  As  such,  it  is  rightfully  paragraphed 
by  itself.  But  in  so  doing,  the  author,  by  making  a  series  of  aphorisms 
upon  art,  has  lost  any  collective  effect.  Thus  the  reader  puts  it  down 
with  a  confused  impression  of  a  number  of  brilliant  statements,  but  with 
no  one  definite  single  impression.  Like  a  diamond  emitting  light  from 
each  of  its  facets,  each  sentence  in  turn  holds  the  attention,  not  only  in 
itself,  but  also  regardless  of  what  either  precedes  or  follows.  And  the 
sequence  of  the  sentences  is  largely  a  matter  of  indifference.  The  infer- 
ence to  be  drawn  from  such  a  form  is  that  it  is  at  all  cost  to  be  avoided, 
since  notwithstanding,  or  really  because  of,  the  brilliance  of  the  sentence, 
the  total  effect  is  lost. 

Ladies  and  Gentlemen  : 

It  is  with  great  hesitation  and  much  misgiving  that  I 
appear  before  you,  in  the  character  of  The  Preacher. 

If  timidity  be  at  all  allied  to  the  virtue  modesty,  and 
can  find  favour  in  your  eyes,  I  pray  you,  for  the  sake  of 
that  virtue,  accord  me  your  utmost  indulgence. 

I  would  plead  for  my  want  of  habit,  did  it  not  seem 
preposterous,  judging  from  precedent,  that  aught  save  the 
most  efficient  effrontery  could  be  ever  expected  in  con- 
nection with  my  subject  —  for  I   will  not  conceal  from 

1  From  "  The  Gentle  Art  for  Making  Enemies,"  by  permission  of  the 
publishers,  G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons,  New  York  and  London. 

11 


12  MODERN  ESSAYS 

you  that  I  mean  to  talk  about  Art.  Yes,  Art  —  that  has 
of  late  become,  as  far  as  much  discussion  and  writing  can 
make  it,  a  sort  of  common  topic  for  the  tea-table. 

Art  is  upon  the  Town  !  —  to  be  chucked  under  the  chin 
by  the  passing  gallant  —  to  be  enticed  within  the  gates 
of  the  householder  —  to  be  coaxed  into  company,  as  a 
proof  of  culture  and  refinement. 

If  familiarity  can  breed  contempt,  certainly  Art  —  or 
what  is  currently  taken  for  it  —  has  been  brought  to  its 
lowest  stage  of  intimacy. 

The  people  have  been  harassed  with  Art  in  every  guise, 
and  vexed  with  many  methods  as  to  its  endurance.  They 
have  been  told  how  they  shall  love  Art,  and  live  with  it. 
Their  homes  have  been  invaded,  their  walls  covered  with 
paper,  their  very  dress  taken  to  task  —  until,  roused  at 
last,  bewildered  and  filled  with  the  doubts  and  discomforts 
of  senseless  suggestion,  they  resent  such  intrusion,  and  cast 
forth  the  false  prophets,  who  have  brought  the  very  name 
of  the  beautiful  into  disrepute,  and  derision  upon  them- 
selves. 

Alas !  ladies  and  gentlemen,  Art  has  been  maligned. 
She  has  naught  in  common  with  such  practices.  She  is 
a  goddess  of  dainty  thought  —  reticent  of  habit,  abjuring 
all  obtrusiveness,  purposing  in  no  way  to  better  others. 

She  is,  withal,  selfishly  occupied  with  her  own  perfection 
only  —  having  no  desire  to  teach  —  seeking  and  finding  the 
beautiful  in  all  conditions  and  in  all  times,  as  did  her  high 
priest  Rembrandt,  when  he  saw  picturesque  grandeur 
and  noble  dignity  in  the  Jews'  quarter  of  xA.msterdani,  and 
lamented  not  that  its  inhabitants  were  not  Greeks. 

As  did  Tintoret  and  Paul  Veronese,  among  the  Vene- 
tians, while  not  halting  to  change  the  brocaded  silks  for 
the  classic  draperies  of  Athens. 


"TEN  OCLOCK"  13 

As  did,  at  the  Court  of  Philip,  Velasquez,  whose  Infantas, 
clad  in  insesthetic  hoops,  are,  as  works  of  Art,  of  the  same 
quality  as  the  Elgin  marbles. 

No  reformers  were  these  great  men  —  no  improvers  of 
the  way  of  others  !  Their  productions  alone  were  their 
occupation,  and,  filled  with  the  poetry  of  their  science, 
they  required  not  to  alter  their  surroundings  —  for,  as 
the  laws  of  their  Art  were  revealed  to  them  they  saw,  in 
the  development  of  their  work,  that  real  beauty  which, 
to  them,  was  as  much  a  matter  of  certainty  and  triumph 
as  is  to  the  astronomer  the  verification  of  the  result,  fore- 
seen with  the  light  given  to  him  alone.  In  all  this,  their 
world  was  completely  severed  from  that  of  their  fellow- 
creatures  with  whom  sentiment  is  mistaken  for  poetry ; 
and  for  whom  there  is  no  perfect  work  that  shall  not  be 
explained  by  the  benefit  conferred  upon  themselves. 

Humanity  takes  the  place  of  Art,  and  God's  creations 
are  excused  by  their  usefulness.  Beauty  is  confounded 
with  virtue,  and,  before  a  work  of  Art,  it  is  asked  :  "What 
good  shall  it  do?" 

Hence  it  is  that  nobility  of  action,  in  this  life,  is  hope- 
lessly linked  with  the  merit  of  the  work  that  portrays  it ; 
and  thus  the  people  have  acquired  the  habit  of  looking,  as 
who  should  say,  not  at  a  picture,  but  through  it,  at  some 
human  fact,  that  shall,  or  shall  not,  from  a  social  point 
of  view,  better  their  mental  or  moral  state.  So  we  have 
come  to  hear  of  the  painting  that  elevates,  and  of  the 
duty  of  the  painter  —  of  the  picture  that  is  full  of  thought, 
and  of  the  panel  that  merely  decorates. 

A  favourite  faith,  dear  to  those  who  teach,  is  that  certain 
periods  were  especially  artistic,  and  that  nations,  readily 
named,  were  notably  lovers  of  Art. 


14  MODERN  ESSAYS 

So  we  are  told  that  the  Greeks  were,  as  a  people,  wor- 
shippers of  the  beautiful,  and  that  in  the  fifteenth  century 
Art  was  engrained  in  the  multitude. 

That  the  great  masters  lived  in  common  understanding 
with  their  patrons  —  that  the  early  Italians  were  artists  — 
all  —  and  that  the  demand  for  the  lovely  thing  produced  it. 

That  we,  of  to-day,  in  gross  contrast  to  this  Arcadian 
purity,  call  for  the  ungainly,  and  obtain  the  ugly. 

That,  could  we  but  change  our  habits  and  climate  — 
were  we  willing  to  wander  in  groves  —  could  we  be  roasted 
out  of  broadcloth  —  were  we  to  do  without  haste,  and 
journey  without  speed,  we  should  again  require  the  spoon 
of  Queen  Anne,  and  pick  at  our  peas  with  the  fork  of  two 
prongs.  And  so,  for  the  flock,  little  hamlets  grow  near 
Hammersmith,  and  the  steam  horse  is  scorned. 

Useless  !  quite  hopeless  and  false  is  the  effort !  —  built 
upon  fable,  and  all  because  "a  wise  man  has  uttered  a 
vain  thing  and  filled  his  belly  with  the  East  wind." 

Listen  !     There  never  was  an  artistic  period. 

There  never  was  an  Art-loving  nation. 

In  the  beginning,  man  went  forth  each  day  —  some  to 
do  battle,  some  to  the  chase ;  others,  again,  to  dig  and  to 
delve  in  the  field  —  all  that  they  might  gain  and  live,  or 
lose  and  die.  Until  there  was  found  among  them  one, 
differing  from  the  rest,  whose  pursuits  attracted  him  not, 
and  so  he  stayed  by  the  tents  with  the  women,  and  traced 
strange  devices  with  a  bvirnt  stick  upon  a  gourd. 

This  man,  who  took  no  joy  in  the  ways  of  his  brethren  — 
who  cared  not  for  conquest,  and  fretted  in  the  field  —  this 
designer  of  quaint  patterns  —  this  deviser  of  the  beauti- 
ful —  who  perceived  in  Nature  about  him  curious  curv- 
ings,  as  faces  are  seen  in  the  fire  —  this  dreamer  apart, 
was  the  first  artist. 


"TEN  O'CLOCK"  15 

And  when,  from  the  field  and  from  afar,  there  came 
back  the  people,  they  took  the  gourd  —  and  drank  from 
out  of  it. 

And  presently  there  came  to  this  man  another  ■ —  and, 
in  time,  others  —  of  like  nature,  chosen  by  the  Gods  — 
and  so  they  worked  together ;  and  soon  they  fashioned, 
from  the  moistened  earth,  forms  resembling  the  gourd. 
And  with  the  power  of  creation,  the  heirloom  of  the  artist, 
presently  they  went  beyond  the  slovenly  suggestion  of 
Nature,  and  the  first  vase  was  born,  in  beautiful  propor- 
tion. 

And  the  toilers  tilled,  and  were  athirst ;  and  the  heroes 
returned  from  fresh  victories,  to  rejoice  and  to  feast ;  and 
all  drank  alike  from  the  artists'  goblets,  fashioned  cun- 
ningly, taking  no  note  the  while  of  the  craftsman's  pride, 
and  understanding  not  his  glory  in  his  work ;  drinking  at 
the  cup,  not  from  choice,  not  from  a  consciousness  that 
it  was  beautiful,  but  because,  forsooth,  there  was  none 
other ! 

And  time,  with  more  state,  brought  more  capacity  for 
luxury,  and  it  became  well  that  men  should  dwell  in  large 
houses,  and  rest  upon  couches,  and  eat  at  tables ;  where- 
upon the  artist,  with  his  artificers,  built  palaces,  and  filled 
them  with  furniture,  beautiful  in  proportion  and  lovely  to 
look  upon. 

And  the  people  lived  in  marvels  of  art  —  and  ate  and 
drank  out  of  masterpieces  —  for  there  was  nothing  else  to 
eat  and  to  drink  out  of,  and  no  bad  building  to  live  in ;  no 
article  of  daily  life,  of  luxury,  or  of  necessity,  that  had  not 
been  handed  down  from  the  design  of  the  master,  and 
made  by  his  workmen. 

And  the  people  questioned  not,  and  had  nothing  to  say  in 
the  matter. 


16  MODERN  ESSAYS 

So  Greece  was  in  its  splendour,  and  Art  reigned  su- 
preme —  by  force  of  fact,  not  bj^  election  —  and  there 
was  no  meddling  from  the  outsider.  The  mighty  warrior 
would  no  more  have  ventured  to  offer  a  design  for  the 
temple  of  Pallas  Athene  than  would  the  sacred  poet  have 
proffered  a  plan  for  constructing  the  catapult. 

And  the  Amateur  was  unknown  —  and  the  Dilettante 
undreamed  of ! 

And  history  wrote  on,  and  conquest  accompanied  civili- 
sation, and  Art  spread,  or  rather  its  products  were  carried 
by  the  victors  among  the  vanquished  from  one  country  to 
another.  And  the  customs  of  cultivation  covered  the  face 
of  the  earth,  so  that  all  peoples  continued  to  use  what  the 
artist  alone  produced. 

And  centuries  passed  in  this  using,  and  the  world  was 
flooded  with  all  that  was  beautiful,  until  there  arose  a 
new  class,  who  discovered  the  cheap,  and  foresaw  fortune 
in  the  facture  of  the  sham. 

Then  sprang  into  existence  the  tawdry,  the  common, 
the  gewgaw. 

The  taste  of  the  tradesman  supplanted  the  science  of 
the  artist,  and  what  was  born  of  the  million  went  back  to 
them,  and  charmed  them,  for  it  was  after  their  own  heart ; 
and  the  great  and  the  small,  the  statesman  and  the  slave, 
took  to  themselves  the  abomination  that  was  tendered, 
and  preferred  it  —  and  have  lived  with  it  ever  since  ! 

And  the  artist's  occupation  was  gone,  and  the  manu- 
facturer and  the  huckster  took  his  place. 

And  now  the  heroes  filled  from  the  jugs  and  drank  from 
the  bowls  —  with  understanding  —  noting  the  glare  of 
their  new  bravery,  and  taking  pride  in  its  worth. 

And  the  people  —  this  time  —  had  mucli  to  say  in  the 
matter  —  and  all  were  satisfied.     And  Birmingham  and 


"TEN  O'CLOCK"  17 

Manchester  arose  in  their  might  —  and  Art  was  relegated 
to  the  curiosity  shop. 

Nature  contains  the  elements,  in  colour  and  form,  of  all 
pictures,  as  the  keyboard  contains  the  notes  of  all  music. 

But  the  artist  is  born  to  pick,  and  choose,  and  group 
with  science,  these  elements,  that  the  result  may  be  beau- 
tiful —  as  the  musician  gathers  his  notes,  and  forms  his  . 
chords,  until  he  bring  forth  from  chaos  glorious  harmony^r 

To  say  to  the  painter,  that  Nature  is  to  be  taken  as  she 
is,  is  to  say  to  the  player,  that  he  may  sit  on  the  piano. 

That  Nature  is  always  right,  is  an  assertion,  artistically, 
as  untrue,  as  it  is  one  whose  truth  is  universally  taken  for 
granted.  Nature  is  very  rarely  right,  to  such  an  extent 
even,  that  it  might  almost  be  said  that  Nature  is  usually 
wrong :  that  is  to  say,  the  condition  of  things  that  shall 
bring  about  the  perfection  of  harmony  worthy  a  picture 
is  rare,  and  not  common  at  all. 

This  would  seem,  to  even  the  most  intelligent,  a  doc- 
trine almost  blasphemous.  So  incorporated  with  our 
education  has  the  supposed  aphorism  become,  that  its 
belief  is  held  to  be  part  of  our  moral  being,  and  the  words 
themselves  have,  in  our  ear,  the  ring  of  religion.  Still, 
seldom  does  Nature  succeed  in  producing  a  picture. 

The  sun  blares,  the  wind  blows  from  the  east,  the  sky  is 
bereft  of  cloud,  and  without,  all  is  of  iron.  The  windows 
of  the  Crystal  Palace  are  seen  from  all  points  of  London. 
The  holiday-maker  rejoices  in  the  glorious  day,  and  the 
painter  turns  aside  to  shut  his  eyes. 

How  little  this  is  understood,  and  how  dutifully  the 
casual  in  Nature  is  accepted  as  sublime,  may  be  gathered 
from  the  unlimited  admiration  daily  produced  by  a  very 
foolish  sunset. 


IS  MODERN   ESSAYS 

The  dignity  of  the  snow-capped  mountain  is  lost  in  dis- 
tinctness, but  the  joy  of  the  tourist  is  to  recognise  the 
traveller  on  the  top.  The  desire  to  see,  for  the  sake  of 
seeing,  is,  with  the  mass,  alone  the  one  to  be  gratified, 
hence  the  delight  in  detail. 

And  when  the  evening  mist  clothes  the  riverside  with 
poetry,  as  with  a  veil,  and  the  poor  buildings  lose  them- 
selves in  the  dim  sky,  and  the  tall  chimneys  become  cam- 
panili,  and  the  warehouses  are  palaces  in  the  night,  and 
the  whole  city  hangs  in  the  heavens,  and  fairy-land  is 
before  us  —  then  the  wayfarer  hastens  home ;  the  working 
man  and  the  cultured  one,  the  wise  man  and  the  one  of 
pleasure,  cease  to  understand,  as  they  have  ceased  to  see, 
and  Nature,  who,  for  once,  has  sung  in  tune,  sings  her 
exquisite  song  to  the  artist  alone,  her  son  and  her  mas- 
ter —  her  son  in  that  he  loves  her,  her  master  in  that  he 
knows  her. 

To  him  her  secrets  are  unfolded,  to  him  her  lessons  have 
become  gradually  clear.  He  looks  at  her  flower,  not  with 
the  enlarging  lens,  that  he  may  gather  facts  for  the  bota- 
nist, but  with  the  light  of  the  one  who  sees  in  her  choice 
selection  of  brilliant  tones  and  delicate  tints,  suggestions 
of  future  harmonies. 

He  does  not  confine  himself  to  purposeless  copying, 
without  thought,  each  blade  of  grass,  as  commended  by 
the  inconsequent,  but,  in  the  long  curve  of  the  narrow 
leaf,  corrected  by  the  straight  tall  stem,  he  learns  how 
grace  is  wedded  to  dignity,  how  strength  enhances  sweet- 
ness, that  elegance  shall  be  the  result. 

In  the  citron  wing  of  the  pale  butterfly,  with  its  dainty 
spots  of  orange,  he  sees  before  him  the  stately  halls  of  fair 
gold,  with  their  slender  saffron  pillars,  and  is  taught  how 
the  delicate  drawing  high  upon  the  walls  shall  be  traced  in 


"TEN  O'CLOCK"  19 

tender  tones  of  orpiment,  and  repeated  by  the  base  in  notes 
of  graver  hue. 

In  all  that  is  dainty  and  lovable  he  finds  hints  for  his 
own  combinations,  and  thus  is  Nature  ever  his  resource 
and  always  at  his  service,  and  to  him  is  naught  re- 
fused. 

Through  his  brain,  as  through  the  last  alembic,  is  dis- 
tilled the  refined  essence  of  that  thought  which  began  with 
the  Gods,  and  which  they  left  him  to  carry  out. 

Set  apart  by  them  to  complete  their  works,  he  produces 
that  wondrous  thing  called  the  masterpiece,  which  sur- 
passes in  perfection  all  that  they  have  contrived  in  what  is 
called  Nature ;  and  the  Gods  stand  by  and  marvel,  and 
perceive  how  far  away  more  beautiful  is  the  Venus  of 
Melos  than  was  their  own  Eve. 

For  some  time  past,  the  unattached  writer  has  become 
the  middleman  in  this  matter  of  Art,  and  his  influence, 
while  it  has  widened  the  gulf  between  the  people  and  the 
painter,  has  brought  about  the  most  complete  misunder- 
standing as  to  the  aim  of  the  picture. 

For  him  a  picture  is  more  or  less  a  hieroglyph  or  symbol 
of  story.  Apart  from  a  few  technical  terms,  for  the  dis- 
play of  which  he  finds  an  occasion,  the  work  is  considered 
absolutely  from  a  literary  point  of  view ;  indeed,  from  what 
other  can  he  consider  it  ?  And  in  his  essays  he  deals  with 
it  as  with  a  novel  —  a  history  —  or  an  anecdote.  He 
fails  entirely  and  most  naturally  to  see  its  excellences,  or 
demerits  —  artistic  —  and  so  degrades  Art,  by  supposing 
it  a  method  of  bringing  about  a  literary  climax. 

It  thus,  in  his  hands,  becomes  merely  a  means  of  perpe- 
trating something  further,  and  its  mission  is  made  a 
secondary  one,  even  as  a  means  is  second  to  an  end. 


20  MODERN  ESSAYS 

The  thoughts  emphasised,  noble  or  other,  are  inevitably 
attached  to  the  incident,  and  become  more  or  less  noble, 
according  to  the  eloquence  or  mental  quality  of  the  writer, 
who  looks  the  while,  with  disdain,  upon  what  he  holds  as 
"mere  execution"  —  a  matter  belonging,  he  believes,  to 
the  training  of  the  schools,  and  the  reward  of  assiduity. 
So  that,  as  he  goes  on  with  his  translation  from  canvas 
to  paper,  the  work  becomes  his  own.  He  finds  poetry 
where  he  would  feel  it  were  he  himself  transcribing 
the  event,  invention  in  the  intricacy  of  the  mise  en  seme, 
and  noble  philosophy  in  some  detail  of  philanthropy, 
courage,  modesty,  or  virtue,  suggested  to  him  by  the 
occurrence. 

All  this  might  be  brought  before  him,  and  his  imagina- 
tion be  appealed  to,  by  a  very  poor  picture  —  indeed,  I 
might  safely  say  that  it  generally  is. 

Meanwhile,  the  painters  poetry  is  quite  lost  to  him  — 
the  amazing  invention  that  shall  have  j)ut  form  and  colour 
into  such  perfect  harmony,  that  exquisiteness  is  the  result, 
he  is  without  understanding  —  the  nobility  of  thought, 
that  shall  have  given  the  artist's  dignity  to  the  whole,  says 
to  him  absolutely  nothing. 

So  that  his  praises  are  published,  for  virtues  we  would 
blush  to  possess  —  while  the  great  qualities,  that  distin- 
guish the  one  work  from  the  thousand,  that  make  of  the 
masterpiece  the  thing  of  beauty  that  it  is  —  have  never 
been  seen  at  all. 

That  this  is  so,  we  can  make  sure  of,  by  looking  back  at 
old  reviews  upon  past  exhibitions,  and  reading  the  flat- 
teries lavished  upon  men  who  have  since  been  forgotten 
altogether  —  but,  upon  whose  works,  the  language  has 
been  exhausted,  in  rhapsodies  —  that  left  nothing  for  the 
National  Gallery. 


"TEN   O'CLOCK"  21 

A  curious  matter,  in  its  effect  upon  the  judgment  of 
these  gentlemen,  is  the  accepted  vocabulary  of  poetic 
symbolism,  that  helps  them,  by  habit,  in  dealing  with 
Nature:  a  mountain,  to  them,  is  synonymous  with 
height  —  a  lake,  with  depth  —  the  ocean,  with  vastness 
—  the  sun,  with  glory. 

So  that  a  picture  with  a  mountain,  a  lake,  and  an 
ocean  —  however  poor  in  paint  —  is  inevitably  "lofty," 
"vast,"  "infinite,"  and  "glorious"  —  on  paper. 

There  are  those  also,  sombre  of  mien,  and  wise  with  the 
wisdom  of  books,  who  frequent  museums  and  burrow  in 
crypts  ;  collecting  —  comparing  —  compiling  —  classify- 
ing —  contradicting. 

Experts  these  —  for  whom  a  date  is  an  accomplish- 
ment —  a  hall-mark,  success  ! 

Careful  in  scrutiny  are  they,  and  conscientious  of  judg- 
ment—  establishing,  with  due  weight,  unimportant  rep- 
utations —  discovering  the  picture,  by  the  stain  on  the 
back  —  testing  the  torso,  by  the  leg  that  is  missing  — 
filling  folios  with  doubts  on  the  way  of  that  limb  —  dis- 
putatious and  dictatorial,  concerning  the  birthplace  of 
inferior  persons  —  speculating,  in  much  writing,  upon  the 
great  worth  of  bad  work. 

True  clerks  of  the  collection,  they  mix  memoranda  with 
ambition,  and,  reducing  Art  to  statistics,  they  "file"  the 
fifteenth  century,  and  "pigeon-hole"  the  antique! 

Then  the  Preacher  "appointed"! 

He  stands  in  high  places  —  harangues  and  holds  forth. 
Sage  of  the  Universities  —  learned  in  many  matters, 
and  of  much  experience  in  all,  save  his  subject. 
Exhorting  —  denouncing  —  directing. 


22  MODERN  ESSAYS 

Filled  with  wrath  and  earnestness. 

Bringing  powers  of  persuasion,  and  polish  of  language, 
to  prove  —  nothing. 

Torn  with  much  teaching  —  having  naught  to  impart. 

Impressive  —  important  —  shallow. 

Defiant  —  distressed  —  desperate. 

Crying  out,  and  cutting  himself  —  while  the  gods  hear 
not. 

Gentle  priest  of  the  Philistine  withal,  again  he  ambles 
pleasantly  from  all  point,  and  through  many  volumes, 
escaping  scientific  assertion  —  "babbles  of  green  fields." 

So  Art  has  become  foolishly  confounded  with  educa- 
tion —  that  all  should  be  equally  qualified. 

Whereas,  while  polish,  refinement,  culture,  and  breed- 
ing, are  in  no  way  arguments  for  artistic  result,  it  is  also 
no  reproach  to  the  most  finished  scholar  or  greatest  gentle- 
man in  the  land  that  he  be  absolutely  without  eye  for 
painting  or  ear  for  music  —  that  in  his  heart  he  prefers 
the  popular  print  to  the  scratch  of  Rembrandt's  needle, 
or  the  songs  of  the  hall  to  Beethoven's  "C  minor  Sym- 
phony." 

Let  him  have  but  the  wit  to  say  so,  and  not  feel  the  ad- 
mission a  proof  of  inferiority. 

Art  happens  —  no  hovel  is  safe  from  it,  no  Prince  may 
depend  upon  it,  the  vastest  intelligence  cannot  bring  it 
about,  and  puny  efforts  to  make  it  universal  end  in  quaint 
comedy,  and  coarse  farce. 

This  is  as  it  should  be  —  and  all  attempts  to  make  it 
otherwise  are  due  to  the  eloquence  of  the  ignorant,  the 
zeal  of  the  conceited. 

The  boundary-line  is  clear.  Far  from  me  to  propose  to 
bridge  it  over  —  that  the  pestered  people  be  pushed  across. 


"TEN  O'CLOCK"  23 

No !  I  would  save  them  from  further  fatigue.  I  would 
come  to  their  relief,  and  would  lift  from  their  shoulders 
this  incubus  of  Art. 

Why,  after  centuries  of  freedom  from  it,  and  indiffer- 
ence to  it,  should  it  now  be  thrust  upon  them  by  the  blind 

—  until  wearied  and  puzzled,  they  know  no  longer  how 
they  shall  eat  or  drink  —  how   they  shall    sit   or   stand 

—  or  wherewithal  they  shall  clothe  themselves  —  with- 
out afflicting  Art. 

But,  lo  !   there  is  much  talk  without ! 

Triumphantly  they  cry,  "Beware!  This  matter  does 
indeed  concern  us.  We  also  have  our  part  in  all  true 
Art !  —  for,  remember  the  '  one  touch  of  Nature '  that 
'makes  the  whole  world  kin.'" 

True,  indeed.  But  let  not  the  unwary  jauntily  suppose 
that  Shakespeare  herewith  hands  him  his  passport  to  Para- 
dise, and  thus  permits  him  speech  among  the  chosen. 
Rather,  learn  that,  in  this  very  sentence,  he  is  condemned 
to  remain  without  —  to  continue  with  the  common. 

This  one  chord  that  vibrates  with  all  —  this  "one  touch 
of  Nature"  that  calls  aloud  to  the  response  of  each  —  that 
explains  the  popularity  of  the  "Bull"  of  Paul  Potter  — 
that  excuses  the  price  of  Murillo's  "Conception"  —  this 
one  unspoken  sympathy  that  pervades  humanity,  is  — 
Vulgarity  ! 

Vulgarity- — under  whose  fascinating  influence  "the 
many"  have  elbowed  "the  few,"  and  the  gentle  circle  of 
Art  swarms  with  the  intoxicated  mob  of  mediocrity,  whose 
leaders  prate  and  counsel,  and  call  aloud,  where  the  Gods 
once  spoke  in  whisper ! 

And  now  from  their  midst  the  Dilettante  stalks  abroad. 


24  MODERN  ESSAYS 

The  amateur  is  loosed.  The  voice  of  the  aesthete  is  heard 
in  the  land,  and  catastrophe  is  upon  us. 

The  meddler  beckons  the  vengeance  of  the  Gods,  and 
ridicule  threatens  the  fair  daughters  of  the  land. 

And  there  are  curious  converts  to  a  weird  culte,  in  which 
all  instinct  for  attractiveness  —  all  freshness  and  sparkle 
—  all  woman's  winsomeness  —  is  to  give  way  to  a  strange 
vocation  for  the  unlovely  —  and  this  desecration  in  the 
name  of  the  Graces  ! 

Shall  this  gaunt,  ill-at-ease,  distressed,  abashed  mixture 
of  mauvaise  honte  and  desperate  assertion  call  itself  artistic, 
and  claim  cousinship  with  the  artist  —  who  delights  in 
the  dainty,  the  sharp,  bright  gaiety  of  beauty  ? 

No  !  —  a  thousand  times  no  !  Here  are  no  connections 
of  ours. 

We  will  have  nothing  to  do  with  them. 

Forced  to  seriousness,  that  emptiness  may  be  hidden, 
they  dare  not  smile  — 

While  the  artist,  in  fulness  of  heart  and  head,  is  glad, 
and  laughs  aloud,  and  is  happy  in  his  strength,  and  is 
merry  at  the  pompous  pretension  —  the  solemn  silliness 
that  surrounds  him. 

For  Art  and  Joy  go  together,  with  bold  openness,  and 
high  head,  and  ready  hand  —  fearing  naught,  and  dread- 
ing no  exposure. 

Know,  then,  all  beautiful  women,  that  we  are  with  you. 
Pay  no  heed,  we  pray  you,  to  this  outcry  of  the  unbecom- 
ing —  this  last  plea  for  the  plain. 

It  concerns  you  not. 

Your  own  instinct  is  near  the  truth  —  your  own  wit  far 
surer  guide  than  the  untaught  ventures  of  thick-heeled 
Apollos. 

What !  will  you  up  and  follow  the  first  piper  that  leads 


"TEN  O'CLOCK"  25 

you  down  Petticoat  Lane,  there,  on  a  Sabbath,  to  gather, 
for  the  week,  from  the  dull  rags  of  ages  wherewith  to  be- 
deck yourselves  ?  that,  beneath  your  travestied  awkward- 
ness, we  have  trouble  to  find  your  own  dainty  selves  ? 
Oh,  fie  !  Is  the  world,  then,  exhausted  ?  and  must  we  go 
back  because  the  thumb  of  the  mountebank  jerks  the 
other  way  ? 

Costume  is  not  dress. 

And  the  wearers  of  wardrobes  may  not  be  doctors  of 
taste ! 

For  by  what  authority  shall  these  be  pretty  masters  ? 
Look  well,  and  nothing  have  they  invented  —  nothing  put 
together  for  comeliness'  sake. 

Haphazard  from  their  shoulders  hang  the  garments  of 
the  hawker  —  combining  in  their  person  the  motley  of 
many  manners  with  the  medley  of  the  mummers'  closet. 

Set  up  as  a  warning,  and  a  finger-post  of  danger,  they 
point  to  the  disastrous  effect  of  Art  upon  the  middle  classes. 

Why  this  lifting  of  the  brow  in  deprecation  of  the  pres- 
ent —  this  pathos  in  reference  to  the  past  ? 

If  Art  be  rare  to-day,  it  was  seldom  heretofore. 

It  is  false,  this  teaching  of  decay. 

The  master  stands  in  no  relation  to  the  moment  at  which 
he  occurs  —  a  monument  of  isolation  —  hinting  at  sad- 
ness —  having  no  part  in  the  progress  of  his  fellow-men. 

He  is  also  no  more  the  product  of  civilisation  than  is  the 
scientific  truth  asserted  dependent  upon  the  wisdom  of  a 
period.  The  assertion  itself  requires  the  man  to  make  it. 
The  truth  was  from  the  beginning. 

So  Art  is  limited  to  the  infinite,  and  beginning  there  can- 
not progress. 

A  silent  indication  of  its  wayward  independence  from 


26  MODERN  ESSAYS 

all  extraneous  advance,  is  in  the  absolutely  unchanged 
condition  and  form  of  implement  since  the  beginning  of 
things. 

The  painter  has  but  the  same  pencil  —  the  sculptor  the 
chisel  of  centuries. 

Colours  are  not  more  since  the  heavy  hangings  of  night 
were  first  drawn  aside,  and  the  loveliness  of  light  revealed. 

Neither  chemist  or  engineer  can  offer  new  elements  of 
the  masterpiece. 

False  again,  the  fabled  link  between  the  grandeur  of 
Art  and  the  glories  and  virtues  of  the  State,  for  Art  feeds 
not  upon  nations,  and  peoples  may  be  wiped  from  the 
face  of  the  earth,  but  Art  is. 

It  is  indeed  high  time  that  we  cast  aside  the  weary 
weight  of  responsibility  and  co-partnership,  and  know  that, 
in  no  way,  do  our  virtues  minister  to  its  worth,  in  no  way 
do  our  vices  impede  its  triumph ! 

How  irksome !  how  hopeless !  how  superhuman  the 
self-imposed  task  of  the  nation !  How  sublimely  vain 
the  belief  that  it  shall  live  nobly  or  art  perish. 

Let  us  reassure  ourselves,  at  our  own  option  is  our  vir- 
tue.    Art  we  in  no  way  affect. 

A  whimsical  goddess,  and  a  capricious,  her  strong  sense 
of  joy  tolerates  no  dulness,  and,  live  we  never  so  spotlessly, 
still  may  she  turn  her  back  upon  us. 

As,  from  time  immemorial,  she  has  done  upon  the  Swiss 
in  their  mountains. 

What  more  worthy  people !  Whose  every  Alpine  gap 
yawns  with  tradition,  and  is  stocked  with  noble  story ; 
yet,  the  perverse  and  scornful  one  will  none  of  it,  and  the 
sons  of  patriots  are  left  with  the  clock  that  turns  the  mill, 
and  the  sudden  cuckoo,  with  difficulty  restrained  in  its  box  ! 


"TEN  O'CLOCK"  27 

For  this  was  Tell  a  hero  !     For  this  did  Gessler  die  ! 

Art,  the  cruel  jade,  cares  not,  and  hardens  her  heart, 
and  hies  her  off  to  the  East,  to  find,  among  the  opium- 
eaters  of  Nankin,  a  favourite  with  whom  she  lingers 
fondly  —  caressing  his  blue  porcelain,  and  painting  his 
coy  maidens,  and  marking  his  plates  with  her  six  marks  of 
choice  —  indifferent  in  her  companionship  with  him,  to 
all  save  the  virtue  of  his  refinement ! 

He  it  is  who  calls  her  — -  he  who  holds  her ! 

And  again  to  the  West,  that  her  next  lover  may  bring 
together  the  Gallery  at  Madrid,  and  show  to  the  world 
how  the  Master  towers  above  all ;  and  in  their  intimacy 
they  revel,  he  and  she,  in  this  knowledge;  and  he  knows 
the  happiness  untasted  by  other  mortal. 

She  is  proud  of  her  comrade,  and  promises  that  in  after- 
years,  others  shall  pass  that  way,  and  understand. 

So  in  all  time  does  this  superb  one  cast  about  for  the 
man  worthy  her  love  —  and  Art  seeks  the  Artist  alone. 

Where  he  is,  there  she  appears,  and  remains  with  him  — 
loving  and  fruitful  —  turning  never  aside  in  moments  of 
hope  deferred  —  of  insult  —  and  of  ribald  misunderstand- 
ing ;  and  when  he  dies  she  sadly  takes  her  flight,  though 
loitering  yet  in  the  land,  from  fond  association,  but  refus- 
ing to  be  consoled.^ 

With  the  man,  then,  and  not  with  the  multitude,  are 
her  intimacies ;  and  in  the  book  of  her  life  the  names  in- 
scribed are  few  —  scant,  indeed,  the  list  of  those  who  have 
helped  to  write  her  story  of  love  and  beauty. 

From  the  sunny  morning,  when,  with  her  glorious  Greek 
relenting,  she  yielded  up  the  secret  of  repeated  line,  as, 

1  And  so  have  we  the  ephemeral  influence  of  the  Master's  memory  — ■ 
the  afterglow,  in  which  are  warmed,  for  a  while,  the  worker  and 
disciple. 


28  MODERN  ESSAYS 

with  his  hand  in  hers,  together  they  marked  in  marble, 
the  measured  rhyme  of  lovely  limb  and  draperies  flowing 
in  unison,  to  the  day  when  she  dipped  the  Spaniard's 
brush  in  light  and  air,  and  made  his  people  live  within 
their  frames,  and  stand  upon  their  legs,  that  all  nobility 
and  sweetness,  and  tenderness,  and  magnificence  should  be 
theirs  by  right,  ages  had  gone  by,  and  few  had  been  her 
choice. 

Countless,  indeed,  the  horde  of  pretenders !  But  she 
knew  them  not. 

A  teeming,  seething,  busy  mass,  whose  virtue  was  in- 
dustry, and  whose  industry  was  vice  ! 

Their  names  go  to  fill  the  catalogue  of  the  collection  at 
home,  of  the  gallery  abroad,  for  the  delectation  of  the 
bagman  and  the  critic. 

Therefore  have  we  cause  to  be  merry  !  —  and  to  cast 
away  all  care  —  resolved  that  all  is  well  —  as  it  ever 
was  —  and  that  it  is  not  meet  that  we  should  be  cried  at, 
and  urged  to  take  measures ! 

Enough  have  we  endured  of  dulness  !  Surely  are  we 
weary  of  weeping,  and  our  tears  have  been  cozened  from 
us  falsely,  for  they  have  called  out  woe !  when  there  was 
no  grief  —  and,  alas  !   where  all  is  fair  ! 

We  have  then  but  to  wait  —  until,  with  the  mark  of 
the  Gods  upon  him  —  there  come  among  us  again  the 
chosen  —  who  shall  continue  what  has  gone  before.  Sat- 
isfied that,  even  were  he  never  to  appear,  the  story  of  the 
beautiful  is  already  complete  —  hewn  in  the  marbles  of 
the  Parthenon  - —  and  broidered,  with  the  birds,  upon  the 
fan  of  Hokusai  —  at  the  foot  of  Fusiyama. 


TACTi 

BY 

Sir  John  Lubbock 

In  Lord  Avebury's  essay,  as  in  the  Whistler,  there  is  no  one  dominating 
thought.  It  consists  of  a  series  of  paragraphs  united  only  by  the  fact 
that  they  deal  with  a  common  subject.  But  whereas  in  Whistler  it  was 
the  sentence  that  was  the  unit,  here  it  is  the  paragraph.  The  order 
of  the  paragraphs,  however,  is  of  no  apparent  importance.  Thus  there 
is  no  obvious  reason  why  the  paragraph  "Have  the  courage  of  your 
opinions"  should  precede  rather  than  follow  that  beginning  "Be  frank, 
and  yet  be  reserved."  Consequently  this  is  not  really  one  essay,  but 
a  series  of  little  essays,  and  the  value  of  the  whole  is  the  sum  of  the  values 
of  the  component  parts.  But  as  no  paragraph  receives  any  support 
from  its  fellows,  one  must  be  very  sure  of  the  value  of  the  separate 
thoughts  before  he  dare  risk  so  loose  a  structure.  On  the  other  hand, 
it  has  this  advantage  that  each  thought  can  be  considered  without 
relation  to  the  rest.  Consequently,  while  in  the  hands  of  a  suggestive 
thinker,  it  is  a  perfectly  possible  form,  for  the  beginner  it  is  very  difficult. 
And  yet  it  is  precisely  this  form  that  the  beginner  is  moved  to  attempt ! 

For  success  in  life  tact  is  more  important  than  talent, 
but  it  is  not  easily  acquired  by  those  to  whom  it  does  not 
come  naturally.  Still  something  can  be  done  by  consid- 
ering what  others  would  probably  wish. 

Never  lose  a  chance  of  giving  pleasure.  Be  courteous 
to  all.  "Civility,"  said  Lady  Montague,  "costs  nothing 
and  buys  everything."  It  buys  much,  indeed,  which  no 
money  will  purchase.     Try  then  to  win  every  one  you 

1  From  "The  Use  of  Life,  "  by  permission  of  The  Macmillan  Co. 

29 


30  MODERN  ESSAYS 

meet.  "Win  their  hearts,"  said  Burleigh  to  Queen  Eliza- 
beth, "and  you  have  all  men's  hearts  and  purses." 

Tact  often  succeeds  where  force  fails.  Lilly  quotes  the 
old  fable  of  the  Sun  and  the  Wind:  "It  is  pretily  noted 
of  a  contention  betweene  the  Winde  and  the  Sunne,  who 
should  have  the  victorye.  A  Gentleman  walking  abroad, 
the  Winde  thought  to  blowe  off  his  cloake,  which  with 
great  blastes  and  blusterings  striuing  to  vnloose  it,  made 
it  to  stick  faster  to  his  backe,  for  the  more  the  Winde 
encreased  the  closer  his  cloake  clapt  to  his  body :  then 
the  Sunne,  shining  with  his  hot  beams,  began  to  warm 
this  gentleman,  who  waxing  somewhat  faint  in  this  faire 
weather,  did  not  only  put  off  his  cloake  but  his  coate,  which 
the  Wynde  perceiuing,  yeelded  the  conquest  to  the  Sunne." 

Always  remember  that  men  are  more  easily  led  than 
driven,  and  that  in  any  case  it  is  better  to  guide  than  to 
coerce. 

"What  thou  wilt 
Thou  rather  shall  enforce  it  with  thy  smile. 
Than  hew  to't  with  thy  sword."  ^ 

It  is  a  good  rule  in  politics,  "pas  trop  gouverner." 
Try  to  win,  and  still  more  to  deserve,  the  confidence  of 
those  with  whom  you  are  brought  in  contact.  Many  a 
man  has  owed  his  influence  far  more  to  character  than  to 
ability.  Sydney  Smith  used  to  say  of  Francis  Horner, 
who,  without  holding  any  high  office,  exercised  a  remark- 
able personal  influence  in  the  Councils  of  the  Nation, 
that  he  had  the  Ten  Commandments  stamped  upon  his 
countenance. 

Try  to  meet  the  wishes  of  others  as  far  as  you  rightly 
and  wisely  can ;  but  do  not  be  afraid  to  say  "No." 

1  Shakespeare. 


TACT  31 

Anybody  can  say  "Yes,"  though  it  is  not  every  one 
who  can  say  "Yes"  pleasantly ;  but  it  is  far  more  difficult 
to  say  "No."  Many  a  man  has  been  ruined  because  he 
could  not  do  so.  Plutarch  tells  us  that  the  inhabitants  of 
Asia  Minor  came  to  be  vassals  only  for  not  having  been 
able  to  pronounce  one  syllable,  which  is  "No."  And  if 
in  the  Conduct  of  Life  it  is  essential  to  say  "No,"  it  is 
scarcely  less  necessary  to  be  able  to  say  it  pleasantly.  We 
ought  always  to  endeavour  that  everybody  with  whom  we 
have  any  transactions  should  feel  that  it  is  a  pleasure  to  do 
business  with  us  and  should  wish  to  come  again.  Business 
is  a  matter  of  sentiment  and  feeling  far  more  than  many 
suppose ;  every  one  likes  being  treated  with  kindness  and 
courtesy,  and  a  frank  pleasant  manner  will  often  clench 
a  bargain  more  effectually  than  a  half  per  cent. 

Almost  any  one  may  make  himself  pleasant  if  he  wishes. 
"The  desire  of  pleasing  is  at  least  half  the  art  of  doing 
it : "  ^  and,  on  the  other  hand,  no  one  will  please  others  who 
does  not  desire  to  do  so.  If  you  do  not  acquire  this  great 
gift  while  you  are  young,  you  will  find  it  much  more  diffi- 
cult afterwards.  Many  a  man  has  owed  his  outward  suc- 
cess in  life  far  more  to  good  manners  than  to  any  solid  merit ; 
while,  on  the  other  hand,  many  a  worthy  man,  with  a  good 
heart  and  kind  intentions,  makes  enemies  merely  by  the 
roughness  of  his  manner.  To  be  able  to  please  is,  more- 
over, itself  a  great  pleasure.  Try  it,  and  you  will  not  be 
disappointed. 

Be  wary  and  keep  cool.  A  cool  head  is  as  necessary  as 
a  warm  heart.  In  any  negotiations,  steadiness  and  cool- 
ness are  invaluable;  while  they  will  often  carry  you  in 
safety  through  times  of  danger  and  difficulty. 

If  you  come  across  others  less  clever  than  you  are,  you 

1  Chesterfield's  "  Letters." 


32  MODERN  ESSAYS 

have  no  right  to  look  down  on  them.  There  is  nothing 
more  to  be  proud  of  in  inheriting  great  ability,  than  a  great 
estate.  The  only  credit  in  either  case  is  if  they  are  used 
well.  /Moreover,  many  a  man  is  much  cleverer  than  he 
seems.  It  is  far  more  easy  to  read  books  than  men.  In 
this  the  eyes  are  a  great  guide.  "When  the  eyes  say  one 
thing  and  the  tongue  another,  a  practised  man  relies  on 
the  language  of  the  first."  ^ 

Do  not  trust  too  much  to  professions  of  extreme  good- 
will. Men  do  not  fall  in  love  with  men,  nor  women  with 
women,  at  first  sight.  If  a  comparative  stranger  protests 
and  promises  too  much,  do  not  place  implicit  confidence 
in  what  he  says.  If  not  insincere,  he  probably  says  more 
than  he  means,  and  perhaps  wants  something  himself  from 
you.  Do  not  therefore  believe  that  every  one  is  a  friend, 
w^  merely  because  he  professes  to  be  so ;  nor  assume  too 
lightly  that  any  one  is  an  enemy. 

We  flatter  ourselves  by  claiming  to  be  rational  and  in- 
tellectual beings,  but  it  would  be  a  great  mistake  to  sup- 
•  pose  that  men  are  always  guided  by  reason.  We  are 
strange  inconsistent  creatures,  and  we  act  quite  as  often, 
perhaps  oftener,  from  prejudice  or  passion.  The  result 
is  that  you  are  more  likely  to  carry  men  with  you  by  en- 
listing their  feelings,  than  by  convincing  their  reason. 
This  applies,  moreover,  to  companies  of  men  even  more 
than  to  individuals. 

Argument  is  always  a  little  dangerous.  It  often  leads 
to  coolness  and  misunderstandings.  You  may  gain  your 
argument  and  lose  your  friend,  which  is  probably  a  bad 
bargain.  If  you  must  argue,  admit  all  you  can,  but  try 
and  show  that  some  point  has  been  overlooked.  Very 
few  people  know  when  they  have  had  the  worst  of  an 

^  Emerson. 


TACT  33 

argument,  and  if  they  do,  they  do  not  like  it.  Moreover, 
if  they  know  they  are  beaten,  it  does  not  follow  that  they 
are  convinced.  Indeed  it  is  perhaps  hardly  going  too  far 
to  say  that  it  is  very  little  use  trying  to  convince  any  one 
by  argument.  State  your  case  as  clearly  and  concisely  as 
possible,  and  if  you  shake  his  confidence  in  his  own  opinion 
it  is  as  much  as  you  can  expect.     It  is  the  first  step  gained. 

Conversation  is  an  art  in  itself,  and  it  is  by  no  means 
those  who  have  most  to  tell  who  are  the  best  talkers ; 
though  it  is  certainly  going  too  far  to  say  with  Lord 
Chesterfield  that  "there  are  very  few  Captains  of  Foot 
who  are  not  much  better  company  than  ever  were  Des- 
cartes or  Sir  Isaac  Newton." 

I  will  not  say  that  it  is  as  difficult  to  be  a  good  listener 
as  a  good  talker,  but  it  is  certainly  by  no  means  easy,  and 
very  nearly  as  important.  You  must  not  receive  every- 
thing that  is  said  as  a  critic  or  a  judge,  but  suspend  your 
judgment,  and  try  to  enter  into  the  feelings  of  the  speaker. 
If  you  are  kind  and  sympathetic  your  advice  will  be  often 
sought,  and  you  will  have  the  satisfaction  of  feeling  that 
you  have  been  a  help  and  comfort  to  many  in  distress  and 
trouble. 

Do  not  expect  too  much  attention  when  you  are  young. 
Sit,  listen,  and  look  on.  Bystanders  proverbially  see  most 
of  the  game ;  and  you  can  notice  what  is  going  on  just  as 
well,  if  not  better,  when  you  are  not  noticed  yourself.  It 
is  almost  as  if  you  possessed  a  cap  of  invisibility. 

To  save  themselves  the  trouble  of  thinking,  which  is  to 
most  people  very  irksome,  men  will  often  take  you  at  your 
own  valuation.  "On  ne  vaut  dans  ce  monde,"  says  La 
Bruyere,  "que  ce  que  Ton  veut  valoir." 

Do  not  make  enemies  for  yourself;  you  can  make 
nothing  worse. 

D 


34  MODERN  ESSAYS 

"Answer  not  ti  fool  acconling  to  liis  folly. 
Lest  thou  also  be  like  unto  him."  ' 

Remember  that  "a  soft  answer  turneth  away  wrath;" 
but  even  an  angry  answer  is  less  fooHsh  than  a  sneer  :  nine 
men  out  of  ten  would  rather  be  abused,  or  even  injured, 
than  laughed  at.  They  will  forget  almost  anything  sooner 
than  being  made  ridiculous. 

"It  is  pleasanter  to  be  deceived  than  to  be  undeceived." 
Trasilaus,  an  Athenian,  went  mad,  and  thought  that  all 
the  ships  in  the  Piraeus  belonged  to  him,  but  having  been 
cured  by  Crito,  he  complained  bitterly  that  he  had  been 
robbed.  It  is  folly,  says  Lord  Chesterfield,  "to  lose  a 
friend  for  a  jest :  but,  in  my  mind,  it  is  not  a  much  less 
degree  of  folly,  to  make  an  enemy  of  an  indifferent  and 
neutral  person  for  the  sake  of  a  bon-mot." 

Do  not  be  too  ready  to  suspect  a  slight,  or  think  you 
are  being  laughed  at — to  say  with  Scrub  in  the  Stratagem, 
"I  am  sure  they  talked  of  me,  for  they  laughed  consum- 
edly."  On  the  other  hand,  if  you  are  laughed  at,  try  to 
rise  above  it.  If  you  can  join  in  heartily,  you  will  turn 
the  tables  and  gain  rather  than  lose.  Every  one  likes  a 
man  who  can  enjoy  a  laugh  at  his  own  expense  —  and 
justly  so,  for  it  shows  good-humour  and  good-sense.  If 
you  laugh  at  yourself,  other  people  will  not  laugh  at 
you. 

Have  the  courage  of  your  opinions.     You  must  expect 

to  be  laughed  at  sometimes,  and  it  will  do  you  no  harm. 

There  is  nothing  ridiculous  in  seeming  to  be  what  you 

really  are,  but  a  good  deal  in  affecting  to  be  what  you 

are  not.     People  often  distress  themselves,  get  angry,  and 

drift  into  a  coolness  with  others,  for  some  quite  imaginary 

grievance. 

1  Proverbs. 


TACT  35 

Be  frank,  and  yet  reserved.  Do  not  talk  much  about 
yourself;  neither  of  yourself,  for  yourself,  nor  against 
yourself :  but  let  other  people  talk  about  themselves,  as 
much  as  they  will.  If  they  do  so  it  is  because  they  like 
it,  and  they  will  think  all  the  better  of  you  for  listening  to 
them.  At  any  rate  do  not  show  a  man,  unless  it  is  your 
duty,  that  you  think  he  is  a  fool  or  a  blockhead.  If  you 
do,  he  has  good  reason  to  complain.  You  may  be  wrong 
in  your  judgment;  he  will,  and  with  some  justice,  form 
the  same  opinion  of  you. 

Burke  once  said  that  he  could  not  draw  an  indictment 
against  a  nation,  and  it  is  very  unwise  as  well  as  unjust 
to  attack  any  class  or  profession.  Individuals  often  forget 
and  forgive,  but  Societies  never  do.  Moreover,  even  in- 
dividuals will  forgive  an  injury  much  more  readily  than 
an  insult.  Nothing  rankles  so  much  as  being  made  ridic- 
ulous. You  will  never  gain  your  object  by  putting  people 
out  of  humour,  or  making  them  look  ridiculous. 

Goethe  in  his  "  Conversations  with  Eckermann"  com- 
mended our  countrymen.  Their  entrance  and  bearing  in 
Society,  he  said,  were  so  confident  and  quiet  that  one 
would  think  they  were  everywhere  the  masters,  and  the 
whole  world  belonged  to  them.  Eckermann  replied  that 
surely  young  Englishmen  were  no  cleverer,  better  edu- 
cated, or  better  hearted  than  young  Germans.  "That  is 
not  the  point,"  said  Goethe;  " their  superiority  does  not 
lie  in  such  things,  neither  does  it  lie  in  their  birth  and  for- 
tune :  it  lies  precisely  in  their  having  the  courage  to  be 
what  nature  made  them.  There  is  no  halfness  about 
them.  They  are  complete  men.  Sometimes  complete 
fools  also,  that  I  heartily  admit ;  but  even  that  is  some- 
thing, and  has  its  weight." 

In  any  business  or  negotiations,  be  patient.     Many  a 


36  MODERN  ESSAYS 

man  would  rather  you  heard  his  story  than  granted  his 
request :   many  an  opponent  has  been  tired  out. 

Above  all,  never  lose  your  temper,  and  if  you  do,  at 
any  rate  hold  your  tongue,  and  try  not  to  show  it. 

"Cease  from  anger,  and  forsake  wrath  : 
Fret  not  thyself  in  any  wise  to  do  evil."  ^ 

For 

"A  soft  answer  turneth  away  wrath  : 
But  grievous  words  stir  up  anger."  ^ 

Never  intrude  where  you  are  not  wanted.  There  is 
plenty  of  room  elsewhere.  "Have  I  not  three  king- 
doms?" said  King  James  to  the  Fly,  "and  yet  thou  must 
needs  fly  in  my  eye."^ 

Some  people  seem  to  have  a  knack  of  saying  the  wrong 
thing,  of  alluding  to  any  subject  which  revives  sad  mem- 
ories, or  rouses  differences  of  opinion. 

No  branch  of  Science  is  more  useful  than  the  knowl- 
edge of  Men.  It  is  of  the  utmost  importance  to  be  able 
to  decide  wisely,  not  only  to  know  whom  you  can  trust, 
and  whom  you  cannot,  but  how  far,  and  in  what,  you  can 
trust  them.  This  is  by  no  means  easy.  It  is  most  im- 
portant to  choose  well  those  who  are  to  work  with  you,  and 
under  you ;  to  put  the  square  man  in  the  square  hole,  and 
the  round  man  in  the  round  hole. 

"If  you  suspect  a  man,  do  not  employ  him:  if  you 
employ  him,  do  not  suspect  him."  ^ 

Those  who  trust  are  oftener  right  than  those  who 
mistrust. 

Confidence  should  be  complete,  but  not  bhnd.  Merlin 
lost  his  life,  wise  as  he  was,  for  imprudently  yielding  to 
Vivien's  appeal  to  trust  her  "all  in  all  or  not  at  all." 

*  Psalms.  *  Proverbs. 

»  Selden's  "  Table  Talk."  *  Confucius. 


TACT  37 

Be  always  discreet.  Keep  your  own  counsel.  If  you 
do  not  keep  it  for  yourself,  you  cannot  expect  others  to 
keep  it  for  you.  "The  mouth  of  a  wise  man  is  in  his 
heart ;  the  heart  of  a  fool  is  in  his  mouth,  for  what  he 
knoweth  or  thinketh  he  uttereth." 

Use  your  head.  Consult  your  reason.  It  is  not  in- 
fallible, but  you  will  be  less  likely  to  err  if  you  do  so. 

Speech  is,  or  ought  to  be  silvern,  but  silence  is  golden. 

Many  people  talk,  not  because  they  have  anything 
to  say,  but  for  the  mere  love  of  talking.  Talking  should 
be  an  exercise  of  the  brain,  rather  than  of  the  tongue. 
Talkativeness,  the  love  of  talking  for  talking's  sake,  is 
almost  fatal  to  success.  Men  are  "plainly  hurried  on, 
in  the  heat  of  their  talk,  to  say  quite  different  things 
from  what  they  first  intended,  and  which  they  after- 
wards wish  unsaid :  or  improper  things,  which  they  had 
no  other  end  in  saying,  but  only  to  find  employment  to 
their  tongue. 


And  this  unrestrained  volubility  and  wantonness  in  speech 
is  the  occasion  of  numberless  evils  and  vexations  in  life. 
It  begets  resentment  in  him  who  is  the  subject  of  it ;  sows 
the  seed  of  strife  and  dissension  amongst  others;  and 
inflames  little  disgusts  and  offences^  which,  if  let  alone, 
would  wear  away  of  themselves."  ^ 

"C'est  une  grande  misere,"  says  La  Bruyere,  "que  de 
n'avoir  pas  assez  d'esprit  pour  bien  parler,  ni  assez  de 
jugement  pour  se  taire."  Plutarch  tells  a  story  of  Dem- 
aratus,  that  being  asked  in  a  certain  assembly  whether 
he  held  his  tongue  because  he  was  a  fool,  or  for  want  of 

1  Dr.  Butler's  "  Sermons." 


x  o 


38  MODERN   ESSAYS 

words,    he   replied,    "A   fool   cannot   hold    his   tongue." 
"Seest  thou,"  said  Solomon, 

"Seest  thou  a  man  that  is  hasty  in  his  words  ? 
There  is  more  hope  of  a  fool  than  of  him."  ^ 

Never  try  to  show  your  own  superiority :  few  things 
annoy  people  more  than  being  made  to  feel  small. 

Do  not  be  too  positive  in  your  statements.  You  may 
be  wrong,  however  sure  you  feel.  Memory  plays  us 
curious  tricks,  and  both  ears  and  eyes  are  sometimes 
deceived.  Our  prejudices,  even  the  most  cherished,  may 
have  no  secure  foundation.  Moreover,  even  if  you  are 
right,  you  will  lose  nothing  by  disclaiming  too  great 
certainty. 

In  action,  again,  never  make  too  sure,  and  never  throw 
away  a  chance.  "There's  many  a  slip  'twixt  the  cup  and 
the  lip." 

It  has  been  said  that  everything  comes  to  those  who 
know  how  to  wait ;  and  when  the  opportunity  does  come, 
seize  it. 

"He  that  wills  not,  when  he  may; 
When  he  will,  he  shall  have  nay." 

If  you  once  let  your  opportunity  go,  you  may  never 
have  another. 

"There  is  a  tide  in  the  affairs  of  men, 
Which  taken  at  the  flood,  leads  on  to  fortune : 
*  Omitted,  all  the  voyage  of  their  life 

Is  bound  in  shallows  and  in  miseries. 
On  such  a  full  sea  are  we  now  afloat : 
And  we  must  take  the  current  when  it  serves. 
Or  lose  our  venture."  ^ 

1  Proverbs  xxix.  20.  ^  Shakespeare. 


TACT  39 

Be  cautious,  but  not  over-cautious  ;  do  not  be  too  much 
afraid  of  making  a  mistake;  "a  man  who  never  makes  a 
mistake,  will  make  nothing." 

Always  dress  neatly  :  we  must  dress,  therefore  we  should 
do  it  well,  though  not  too  well ;  not  extravagantly,  either  \-- 
in  time  or  money,  but  taking  care  to  have  good  materials. 
It  is  astonishing  how  much  people  judge  by  dress.  Of 
those  you  come  across,  many  go  mainly  by  appearances 
in  any  case,  and  many  more  have  in  your  case  nothing 
but  appearances  to  go  by.  The  eyes  and  ears  open  the 
heart,  and  a  hundred  people  will  see,  for  one  who  will 
know  you.  Moreover,  if  you  are  careless  and  untidy 
about  yourself,  it  is  a  fair,  though  not  absolute,  conclusion 
that  you  will  be  careless  about  other  things  also. 

When  you  are  in  Society  study  those  who  have  the  best 
and  pleasantest  manners.  "Manner,"  says  the  old  prov- 
erb with  much  truth,  if  with  some  exaggeration,  "  maketh 
Man,"  and  "a  pleasing  figure  is  a  perpetual  letter  of 
recommendation."  ^  "Merit  and  knowledge  will  not  gain 
hearts,  though  they  will  secure  them  when  gained.  En-  .  . 
gage  the  eyes  by  your  address,  air,  and  motions ;  soothe 
the  ears  by  the  elegance  and  harmony  of  your  diction; 
and  the  heart  will  certainly  (I  should  rather  say  probably) 
follow."  2  Every  one  has  eyes  and  ears,  but  few  have  a 
sound  judgment.  The  world  is  a  stage.  We  are  all 
players,  and  every  one  knows  how  much  the  success  of  a 
piece  depends  upon  the  way  it  is  acted. 

Lord  Chesterfield,  speaking  of  his  son,  says,  "They  tell 
me  he  is  loved  wherever  he  is  known,  and  I  am  very  glad 
of  it ;  but  I  would  have  him  be  liked  before  he  is  known, 
and  loved  afterwards.  .  .  .  You  know  very  little  of  the 
nature  of  mankind,  if  you  take  those  things  to  be  of  little 
^  Bacon.  ^  Lord  Chesterfield. 


40  MODERN   ESSAYS 

consequence ;  one  cannot  be  too  attentive  to  them ;  it  is 
they  that  always  engage  the  heart,  of  which  the  under- 
standing is  commonly  the  bubble," 

The  Graces  help  a  man  in  life  almost  as  much  as  the 
Muses.  We  all  know  that  "one  man  may  steal  a  horse, 
while  another  may  not  look  over  a  hedge;"  and  why? 
because  the  one  will  do  it  pleasantly,  the  other  disagree- 
ably. Horace  tells  us  that  even  Youth  and  Mercury,  the 
God  of  Eloquence  and  of  the  Arts,  were  powerless  without 
the  Graces. 


BOOK-BUYING  i 

BY 

Augustine  Birrell 

As  the  student  is  taught  in  any  rhetoric,  an  essay  to  have  unity  must 
have  one  dominating  idea,  in  order  that,  when  the  reader  finishes,  he 
may  summarize  the  thought  in  a  single  sentence.  Theoretically  each 
paragraph  has  a  definite  bearing  on  that  one  sentence.  Yet  in  such 
an  essay  as  this  of  Mr.  Birrell  such  a  summary  is  impossible.  The 
paragraphs  are  associational,  rather  than  logical.  The  thought  may  be 
roughly  expressed  in  the  following  sequence :  although  the  older  genera- 
tion feel  that  book-buying  has  gone  out  of  fashion,  actually,  as  is  proved 
by  the  prices  in  the  catalogues,  it  is  still  done ;  private  libraries  are  grow- 
ing up  on  all  sides ;  provided  that  they  are  not  inherited,  each  library 
expresses  the  owner;  and  yet  the  owner's  possession  is  merely  tem- 
poral. Between  these  thoughts  there  is  no  logical  sequence.  The 
author  is  trying  to  give  the  effect  of  fireside  conversation  where  the 
second  idea  arises  from  the  first  but  is  not  caused  by  it.  Consequently 
there  is  no  one  dominating  thought,  and  equally  the  relation  of  the 
paragraphs  is  merely  chronological.  It  is  not  a  series  of  sentences,  like 
the  Whistler,  nor  a  series  of  paragraphs  like  Lord  Avebury's  "  Tact "  ;  it 
has  a  unity,  but  that  unity  is  one  of  emotion,  rather  than  one  of  thought. 
Consequently,  however  charming  may  be  this  particular  essay,  it  is  a 
dangerous  model. 

The  most  distinguished  of  living  Englishmen,  who, 
great  as  he  is  in  many  directions,  is  perhaps  inherently 
more  a  man  of  letters  than  anything  else,  has  been  over- 
heard mournfully  to  declare  that  there  were  more  book- 

1  From  "  Obiter  Dicta,"  Second  Series,  by  permission  of  the  publishers, 
Charles  Scribner's  Sons. 

41 


42  MODERN  ESSAYS 

sellers'  shops  in  his  native  town  sixty  years  ago,  when  he 
was  a  boy  in  it,  than  are  to-day  to  be  found  within  its 
boundaries.  And  yet  the  place  'all  unabashed'  now 
boasts  its  bookless  self  a  city  ! 

Mr.  Gladstone  was,  of  course,  referring  to  second-hand 
bookshops.  Neither  he  nor  any  other  sensible  man  puts 
himself  out  about  new  books.  When  a  new  book  is 
published,  read  an  old  one,  was  the  advice  of  a  sound 
though  surly  critic.  It  is  one  of  the  boasts  of  letters  to 
have  glorified  the  term  'second-hand,'  which  other  crafts 
have  "  soiled  to  all  ignoble  use."  But  why  it  has  been 
able  to  do  this  is  obvious.  All  the  best  books  are  neces- 
sarily second-hand.  The  writers  of  to-day  need  not  grum- 
ble. Let  them  'bide  a  wee.'  If  their  books  are  worth 
anything,  they,  too,  one  day  will  be  second-hand.  If 
their  books  are  not  worth  anything  there  are  ancient  trades 
still  in  full  operation  amongst  us  —  the  pastrycooks  and 
the  trunkmakers  —  who  must  have  paper. 

But  is  there  any  substance  in  the  plaint  that  nobody 
now  buys  books,  meaning  thereby  second-hand  books.? 
The  late  Mark  Pattison,  who  had  16,000  volumes,  and 
whose  lightest  word  has  therefore  weight,  once  stated  that 
he  had  been  informed,  and  verily  believed,  that  there  were 
men  of  his  own  University  of  Oxford  who,  being  in  uncon- 
trolled possession  of  annual  incomes  of  not  less  than  £500, 
thought  they  were  doing  the  thing  handsomely  if  they  ex- 
pended £50  a  year  upon  their  libraries.  But  we  are  not 
bound  to  believe  this  unless  we  like.  There  was  a  touch 
of  morosity  about  the  late  Rector  of  Lincoln  which  led  him 
to  take  gloomy  views  of  men,  particularly  Oxford  men. 

No  doubt  arguments  a  priori  may  readily  be  found  to 
support  the  contention  that  the  habit  of  book-buying  is 
on  the  decline.     I  confess  to  knowing  one  or  two  men, 


BOOK-BUYING  43 

not  Oxford  men  either,  but  Cambridge  men  (and  the  pas- 
sion of  Cambridge  for  Hterature  is  a  by-word),  who,  on 
the  plea  of  being  pressed  with  business,  or  because  they 
were  going  to  a  funeral,  have  passed  a  bookshop  in  a 
strange  town  without  so  much  as  stepping  inside  "  just  to 
see  whether  the  fellow  had  anything."  But  painful  as 
facts  of  this  sort  necessarily  are,  any  damaging  inference 
we  might  feel  disposed  to  draw  from  them  is  dispelled  by 
a  comparison  of  price-lists.  Compare  a  bookseller's  cata- 
logue of  1862  with  one  of  the  present  year,  and  your 
pessimism  is  washed  away  by  the  tears  which  unrestrain- 
edly flow  as  you  see  what  bonnes  fortunes  you  have  lost. 
A  young  book-buyer  might  well  turn  out  upon  Primrose 
Hill  and  bemoan  his  youth,  after  comparing  old  catalogues 
with  new. 

Nothing  but  American  competition,  grumble  some  old 
stagers. 

Well !  why  not  ?  This  new  battle  for  the  books  is  a 
free  fight,  not  a  private  one,  and  Columbia  has  'joined 
in.'  Lower  prices  are  not  to  be  looked  for.  The  book- 
buyer  of  1900  will  be  glad  to  buy  at  to-day's  prices.  I 
take  pleasure  in  thinking  he  will  not  be  able  to  do  so. 
Good  finds  grow  scarcer  and  scarcer.  True  it  is  that  but 
a  few  short  weeks  ago  I  picked  up  (such  is  the  happy 
phrase,  most  apt  to  describe  what  was  indeed  a  'street 
casualty')  a  copy  of  the  orginial  edition  of  Endymion 
(Keats's  poem  —  O  subscriber  to  Mudie's  !  —  not  Lord 
Beaconsfield's  novel)  for  the  easy  equivalent  of  half-a- 
crown  —  but  then  that  was  one  of  my  lucky  days.  The 
enormous  increase  of  booksellers'  catalogues  and  their  wide 
circulation  amongst  the  trade  has  already  produced  a 
hateful  uniformity  of  prices.  Go  where  you  will  it  is  all 
the  same  to  the  odd  sixpence.     Time  was  when  you  could 


44  MODERN  ESSAYS 

map  out  the  country  for  yourself  with  some  hopefulness 
of  plunder.  There  were  districts  where  the  Elizabethan 
dramatists  were  but  slenderly  protected.  A  raid  into  the 
'bonnie  North  Countrie'  sent  you  home  again  cheered 
with  chap-books  and  weighted  with  old  pamphlets  of  curi- 
ous interests ;  whilst  the  West  of  England  seldom  failed 
to  yield  a  crop  of  novels.  I  remember  getting  a  complete 
set  of  the  Bronte  books  in  the  original  issues  at  Torquay, 
I  may  say,  for  nothing.  Those  days  are  over.  Your 
country  bookseller  is,  in  fact,  more  likely,  such  tales  does 
he  hear  of  London  auctions,  and  such  catalogues  does  he 
receive  by  every  post,  to  exaggerate  the  value  of  his  wares 
than  to  part  with  them  pleasantly,  and  as  a  country 
bookseller  should,  "just  to  clear  my  shelves,  you  know, 
and  give  me  a  bit  of  room."  The  only  compensation  for 
this  is  the  catalogues  themselves.  You  get  them,  at  least, 
for  nothing,  and  it  cannot  be  denied  that  they  make 
mighty  pretty  reading. 

These  high  prices  tell  their  own  tale,  and  force  upon  us 
the  conviction  that  there  never  were  so  many  private 
libraries  in  course  of  growth  as  there  are  to-day. 

Libraries  are  not  made ;  they  grow.  Your  first  two  thou- 
sand volumes  present  no  difficulty,  and  cost  astonishingly 
little  money.  Given  £400  and  five  years,  and  an  ordinary 
man  can  in  the  ordinary  course,  without  undue  haste  or 
putting  any  pressure  upon  his  taste,  surround  himself  with 
this  number  of  books,  all  in  his  own  language,  and  thence- 
forward have  at  least  one  place  in  the  world  in  which  it 
is  possible  to  be  happy.  But  pride  is  still  out  of  the 
question.  To  be  proud  of  having  two  thousand  books 
would  be  absurd.  You  might  as  well  be  proud  of  having 
two  top-coats.  After  your  first  two  thousand  difficulty 
begins,  but  until  you  have  ten  thousand  volumes  the  less 


BOOK-BUYING  .  45 

you  say  about  your  library  the  better.  Then  you  may 
begin  to  speak. 

It  is  no  doubt  a  pleasant  thing  to  have  a  library  left  you. 
The  present  writer  will  disclaim  no  such  legacy,  but  hereby 
undertakes  to  accept  it,  however  dusty.  But  good  as  it 
is  to  inherit  a  library,  it  is  better  to  collect  one.  Each 
volume  then,  however  lightly  a  stranger's  eye  may  roam 
from  shelf  to  shelf,  has  its  own  individuality,  a  history  of 
its  own.  You  remember  where  you  got  it,  and  how  much 
you  gave  for  it ;  and  your  word  may  safely  be  taken  for 
the  first  of  these  facts,  but  not  for  the  second. 

The  man  who  has  a  library  of  his  own  collection  is  able 
to  contemplate  himself  objectively,  and  is  justified  in  be- 
lieving in  his  own  existence.  No  other  man  but  he  would 
have  made  precisely  such  a  combination  as  his.  Had  he 
been  in  any  single  respect  different  from  what  he  is,  his 
library,  as  it  exists,  never  would  have  existed.  Therefore, 
surely  he  may  exclaim,  as  in  the  gloaming  he  contemplates 
the  backs  of  his  loved  ones,  "  They  are  mine,  and  I  am 
theirs." 

But  the  eternal  note  of  sadness  will  find  its  way  even 
through  the  keyhole  of  a  library.  You  turn  some  familiar 
page,  of  Shakespeare  it  may  be,  and  his  '  infinite  variety,' 
his  'multitudinous  mind,'  suggests  some  new  thought, 
and  as  you  are  wondering  over  it  you  think  of  Lycidas, 
your  friend,  and  promise  yourself  the  pleasure  of  having  his 
opinion  of  your  discovery  the  very  next  time  when  by  the 
fire  you  two  "  help  waste  a  sullen  day."  Or  it  is,  perhaps, 
some  quainter,  tenderer  fancy  that  engages  your  soli- 
tary attention,  something  in  Sir  Philip  Sydney  or  Henry 
Vaughan,  and  then  you  turn  to  look  for  Phyllis,  ever  the  best 
interpreter  of  love,  human  or  divine.  Alas  !  the  printed 
page  grows  hazy  beneath  a  filmy  eye  as  you  suddenly  re- 


46  .  MODERN  ESSAYS 

member  that  Lycidas  is  dead  —  "  dead  ere  his  prime  "  — 
and  that  the  pale  cheek  of  PhylHs  will  never  again  be  re- 
lumined  by  the  white  light  of  her  pure  enthusiasm.  And 
then  you  fall  to  thinking  of  the  inevitable,  and  perhaps, 
in  your  present  mood,  not  unwelcome  hour,  when  the 
'ancient  peace'  of  your  old  friends  will  be  disturbed,  when 
rude  hands  will  dislodge  them  from  their  accustomed  nooks 
and  break  up  their  goodly  company. 

"  Death  bursts  amongst  them  like  a  shell. 
And  strews  them  over  half  the  town." 

They  will  form  new  combinations,  lighten  other  men's 
toil,  and  soothe  another's  sorrow.  Fool  that  I  was  to 
call  anything  mine! 


ALEXANDER  HAMILTON  ^ 

BY 

Frederic  Harrison 

In  the  problem  presented  in  reviewing  a  book,  likewise,  it  is  unity 
of  impression  that  is  sought,  rather  than  a  definite  logical  unity  of  the 
thought.  The  reviewer  aims  rather  to  record  his  impression  than  to 
prove  a  case.  To  us  Americans,  Mr.  Harrison's  review  of  Mr.  Oliver's 
study  of  Hamilton  is  interesting  as  enabling  us  to  see  a  national  figure 
through  foreign  eyes.  For  his  English  readers,  Mr.  Harrison  starts  witl^' 
discussion  of  the  need  for  such  a  work.  Then  a  paragraph  dealing 
with  previous  writers"  on  Hamilton.  Two  paragraphs  follow  criticizing 
the  method  of  presentation  chosen  by  Mr.  Oliver  One  paragraph 
summarizes  Hamilton's  renown.  And  the  final  paragraph  denies  the 
application  of  one  of  his  principles  to  the  British  Empire.  The  English 
reader  must  have  finished  the  review  with  the  impression  that  Mr.  Oliver's 
book  was  an  adequate  and  suggestive  treatment  of  a  character  well  worth 
the  knowing.  And  that  is  the  impression  that  Mr.  Harrison  wished  to 
convey.  _  —     .  ' 

An  English  study  of  Alexander  Hamilton;  in  the  domain 
of  thought  the  main  Founder  pf  the.  United  States  as  a 
cohesive  Commonwealth,  was  urgently  .needed.  His 
was  one  of  the  finest  minds  of  the  eighteenth  century. 
For  more  than  a  century  the  great  State.ne  did' so  much  to 
create  has  been  broadening  in  the  lines  ^'hich  he  traced 
for  it,  and  to  the  ends  which 'his  genius  foresaw  more 
truly  than  all  his  colleagues.  His  hurried  political  pam- 
phlets, which  brought  order  out  of  chaos  at  the  close  of 

1  From  "Memories  and  Thoughts,"  by  permission  of  The  Macmillan 
Co. 

47  • 


48  MODERN  ESSAYS 

the  War  of  Independence,  have  taken  their  place  amongst 
the  permanent  classics  of  political  science.  And  yet  few 
Englishmen  have  ever  opened  the  Federalist;  and  many 
well-read  students  of  history,  who  know  all  about  his 
personal  scandals  and  his  tragic  end,  have  no  very  definite 
convictions  as  to  the  share  in  forming  the  United  States, 
due  to  Washington,  to  Jefferson,  Madison,  Adams,  and 
to  Hamilton.  As  philosopher,  as  publicist,  as  creative 
genius,  Hamilton  was  far  the  most  important.  And  it 
was  indeed  time  that  English  readers  should  have  the 
story  told  them  from  the  English  point  of  view.  His  own 
son.  Senator  Cabot  Lodge,  and  other  American  writers  have 
amply  done  him  justice.  But  one  fears  that  standard 
American  works  are  not  assiduously  studied  in  England. 
Mr.  Oliver's  work,  which  is  not  a  biography,  but  "an 
essay  on  American  Union,"  adequately  supplies  a  real 
want  in  political  history. 

Sir  Henry  Maine,  in  his  work  on  Popular  Government, 
1885,  devoted  the  fourth  essay  to  the  Constitution  of 
the  United  States,  which  he  truly  called  "much  the  most 
important  political  instrument  of  modern  times."  And 
throughout  this  fourth  essay  Sir  Henry  does  ample  justice 
to  the  sagacity  and  foresight  of  Hamilton.  He  quotes 
Chancellor  Kent,  who  compares  the  Federalist  (mainly 
written  by  Hamilton)  with  Aristotle,  Cicero,  Machiavel, 
Montesquieu,  Milton,  Locke,  and  Burke ;  and  Maine 
declares  that  such  praise  is  not  too  high.  Talleyrand,  a 
diplomatist  and  a  cynic,  spoke  of  Hamilton  with  en- 
thusiasm, and  Guizot  praised  his  political  writings  as  of 
consummate  wisdom  and  practical  sagacity.  Mr.  Bryce, 
in  his  great  work  on  The  American  Commonwealth,  does 
full  justice  to  Hamilton.  Sir  George  Trevelyan,  in  his 
American  Revolution,  calls  Hamilton  "the  most  brilliant 


ALEXANDER  HAMILTON  49 

and  most  tragic  figure  in  all  the  historical  gallery  of 
American  statesmen."  In  the  new  Cambridge  Modern 
History,  vol.  vii.,  Professor  Bigelow  truly  describes 
Hamilton  as  "the  master  spirit  of  the  Convention  which 
framed  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States."  "A 
nation  was  to  be  created  and  established,  created  of  jarring 
commonwealths  and  established  on  the  highest  level  of 
right."  The  accomplishment  of  this  stupendous  task  by 
the  dominant  character  of  George  Washington  and  the 
piercing  genius  of  Alexander  Hamilton  places  both  amongst 
the  great  creative  statesmen  of  the  world. 

Mr.  Oliver's  book  does  not  profess  to  be  a  history  or  a 
biography,  but  "merely  an  essay  on  the  character  and 
achievements  of  a  man  who  was  the  chief  figure  in  a  series 
of  striking  events."  This  is  perhaps  rather  too  modest  a 
claim.  For  the  years  from  1780  to  1796  —  the  years 
when  Hamilton  first  contributed  to  the  task  of  practical 
statesmanship  down  to  his  drafting  Washington's  "Fare- 
well Address"  —  the  history  of  the  War  and  of  the  Settle- 
ment during  the  two  Presidencies  of  Washington  is  quite 
adequately  sketched.  And  as  to  a  biography  of  Hamilton, 
a  living  portrait  of  the  man  himself  is  vigorously  drawn 
in  the  midst  of  the  historical  and  political  chapters.  It 
is  quite  true  that  Hamilton  and  the  circumstances  of  his 
career  are  by  no  means  the  exclusive  subject.  Washing- 
ton, Jefferson,  Madison,  Adams,  Monroe,  Burr,  and  other 
prominent  politicians  have  sections  of  the  book  to  them- 
selves. And  the  aims  and  principles  of  the  various 
parties  —  Federalists,  Democrats,  State  Rights,  Republi- 
cans, Patriots,  Neutralists  —  so  obscure  to  us  at  home, 
are  made  clear  as  the  story  moves. 

This  is  no  doubt  the  true,  perhaps  the  necessary  way  of 
recounting  the  life-work  of  Hamilton.     He  was  so  closely 

E 


50  MODERN  ESSAYS 

associated  with  every  phase  of  the  American  movement 
for  the  twenty  years  after  the  virtual  close  of  the  war  at 
Yorktown,  in  1781,  that  the  life  of  Hamilton  is  hardly 
intelligible  unless  we  read  it  as  part  of  the  history  of  his 
country.  And  his  relations  with  his  colleagues  in  govern- 
ment, and  with  his  opponents,  rivals,  and  enemies  in  con- 
troversy and  intrigue,  are  so  close  and  so  complex  that  no 
true  portrait  of  Hamilton  is  complete  till  we  have  sketches 
of  his  contemporaries.  On  the  whole,  Mr.  Oliver  has  set 
Alexander  Hamilton  in  his  true  place,  as  next  to  Washing- 
ton, the  leading  founder  of  the  United  States  —  the  in- 
tellectual creator  of  the  great  Commonwealth  of  which 
George  Washington  was  the  typical  father  and  the  moral 
hero. 

"*  Hamilton  is  the  American  Burke  in  his  union  of  literary 
power  with  political  science.  ^  If  he  falls  short  of  Burke 
in  the  majesty  of  speech  and  the  splendour  of  many- 
sided  gifts,  he  was  never  hurried  into  the  frantic  passions 
and  fatal  blunders  which  finally  ruined  Burke's  influence 
over  his  age.  Hamilton  at  times  exaggerated  the  dangers 
he  foresaw,  was  too  pessimist  and  even  unjust  to  the  fail- 
ings he  condemned.  But  on  the  whole  he  made  no  great 
mistake,  and  all  those  ideas  for  which  he  struggled  with 
such  tenacity  and  earnestness  have  in  the  course  of  ages 
come  to  a  triumphant  issue.  Hamilton,  too,  reminds  us 
of  Burke  in  the  sadness  of  his  personal  history,  in  the 
poignant  disappointments  of  his  career,  and  in  the  want 
of  full  recognition  of  his  supreme  greatness  in  his  lifetime. 
Colleagues  whom  we  now  see  to  have  been  his  inferiors, 
both  morally  and  intellectually,  men  representing  lower 
ideals,  came  to  the  first  place  in  the  State  he  had  created, 
a  seat  to  which  it  was  quite  impossible  that  he  could  have 
been   chosen.     Even   in   America   Hamilton   has   hardly 


ALEXANDER  HAMILTON  51 

been  judged  with  full  honour.  He  was  too  conservative, 
too  anti-democratic,  of  too  philosophic  a  temperament, 
too  much  the  idealist,  and  too  little  the  demagogue  ever 
to  attain  the  popularity  which  wins  the  votes  of  a  vast 
majority. 

The  book  has  a  moral  —  somewhat  startling,  and  at  the 
present  moment  charged  with  lively  interest.  The  con- 
cluding book  is  occupied  with  general  reflections  upon 
Nationality,  Empire,  Union,  and  Sovereignty ;  and  the 
problem  of  welding  the  thirteen  American  States  into  a 
single  Commonwealth  is  applied  to  the  present-day 
problem  of  reconciling  the  British  Constitution  with 
our  transmarine  Empire.  Mr.  Oliver,  if  I  understand  him 
aright,  seems  afraid  that  the  British  Empire  is  held  together 
by  bonds  too  loose  and  undefined,  and  would  urge  on  it 
the  Hamiltonian  doctrine  of  central  Sovereignty  and  res- 
olute Union.  He  quotes  Washington's  maxim:  "In- 
fluence is  not  government."  He  says  the  tie  of  affec- 
tion or  kinship  is  not  union.  He  seems,  like  Hobbes  and 
Austin,  to  ask  for  force  as  the  basis  of  true  union  and 
government.  Why,  the  self-governing  Colonies  would 
fly  into  fifty  bits  at  the  mere  sound  of  such  a  thing.  The 
American  Civil  War  of  1863  would  be  a  flea-bite  compared 
to  this.  For  my  part,  I  quite  agree  with  Washington 
that  "influence  is  not  government,"  and  with  Mr.  Oliver 
that  sentimental  ties  are  not  Union.  But  the  casual  con- 
glomeration called  the  British  Empire  has  nothing  else 
to  rest  on,  and  the  least  attempt  to  bind  it  with  closer 
ties  would  mean  immediate  and  final  disruption. 


SALAD  1 

BY 

Charles  Sears  Baldwin 

Such  an  essay  as  the  following  by  Professor  Baldwin  differs  from  the 
preceding  by  Mr.  Birrell  in  that,  although  not  overtly  expressed,  there  is 
one  dominating  thought  implied,  namely  that  salad  is  excellent.  On 
the  face  of  it,  this  thought  is  neither  profound,  nor  capable  of  elaborate 
proof.  Naturally  it  is  a  question  of  the  individual  taste.  Therefore 
Professor  Baldwin  is  artistically  correct  in  not  stressing  any  logical 
connection  between  his  paragraphs.  Notice,  however,  how  very  careful 
is  the  author  to  preserve  the  apparent  sequence  of  thought,  by  closing 
his  paragraphs  with  his  strongest  sentence.  He  then  in  the  first  sentence 
of  the  succeeding  paragraph  repeats  the  final  idea  of  the  preceding. 
By  this  device  —  one  to  be  recommended  to  all  young  writers  —  his 
thought  apparently  moves  to  a  definite  conclusion.  And  as  the  essay 
by  its  nature  is  a  much-ado-about-nothing,  in  the  very  forms  of  his 
sentences  is  an  intentionally  pedantic  cast  to  give  a  half  humorous 
effect.  The  more  this  essay  is  studied,  the  greater  will  be  the  appre- 
ciation of  the  author's  literary  art. 

A  SOUP  garden  is  a  phrase  of  the  French,  too  nice  for 
America.  Our  gardens  are  indiscriminate ;  enough  distinc- 
tion merely  to  have  a  garden.  And  indeed,  for  an  Ameri- 
can moved  to  express  a  further  distinction,  to  assert  him- 
self against  provincialism,  better  than  a  soup  garden 
would  be  a  salad  garden.  To  soup,  though  it  be  accepted 
in  too  narrow  a  sense,  America  is  largely  converted.  Even 
mountain  taverns  dispense  a  diluted  tomato  sauce  that 

^  From  "Essays  out  of  Hours,"  by  permission  of  the  publishers, 
Longmans,  Green,  &  Co. 

52 


SALAD  53 

often  has  merit  of  heat.     But  salad  is  not  even  known 
except  to  the  unrepresentative  few. 

That  salad  is  gone  but  a  little  way,  and  is  still  a  singu- 
larity, appears  when  American  women  that  read  book 
reviews  are  found  to  know  it  only  as  involving  fowl  or 
lobster,  and  to  buy  dressing  even  for  these,  as  for  their 
boots,  by  the  bottle.  She  shall  not  learn  the  rudiments 
of  this  craft  who  will  not  forget  the  grosser  mayonnaise. 
And  since,  under  pressure  of  convention,  as  for  what  is 
by  barbarism  called  a  tea,  she  will  hanker  back  after  the 
fleshpots,  it  is  oftener  he  that  learns.  In  matters  of  food, 
what  moves  through  man  alone  stems  a  tide  of  distrust 
slowly. 

Nor  is  this  without  its  worth  in  supporting  the  head  of 
the  table ;  but  let  the  head  keep  a  manly  humility.  Let 
that  man  alone  turn  to  mayonnaise  who  has  labored 
seven  years  without  mustard,  and  used  eggs  as  they  were 
golden.  It  is  a  woman's  dressing,  at  best  offering  satiety, 
like  the  sugarings  of  the  sex ;  at  less  than  best  belying 
the  name  of  salad  by  making  what  it  touches  less  savory. 
The  elements  of  all  salads  are  oil  and  vinegar,  with  salt 
and  pepper.  Until  these  are  his  familiars,  let  no  man  try 
beyond.  That  the  oil  be  French  or  Italian  marks  the 
fixing  of  personality.  The  vinegar  may  well  add  tarragon, 
the  pepper  be  from  Nepaul.  But  none  of  these  is  vital ; 
the  proportion  of  each  to  the  material  is  all,  and  the 
happy  hand. 

The  material  is  every  green  herb  for  the  service  of  man. 
Fruit  salads,  though  they  open  many  inventions,  are  but 
toys  to  a  serious  return  to  nature.  First,  let  him  explore 
all  the  greens  of  a  large  market,  and  combine  boldly 
among  the  vegetables  carried  cold  from  yesterday's  table. 
Lettuce,  though  alone  among  herbs  it  has  vogue,  is  but 


54  MODERN  ESSAYS 

ancillary.  To  use  no  other  is  like  knowing  wine  only  as 
champagne.  In  fact,  among  herbs  lettuce  has  least 
character.  Therefore,  after  the  delicacy  of  its  first  fresh- 
ness, its  use  is  in  conjunction.  But  water  cress  and  celery 
should  be  either  very  thick  in  the  bowl  or  very  sparse; 
for  they  pungently  put  down  other  savors.  Beyond  this 
frontier  is  a  world  without  rule,  where  each  man  may  be  a 
discoverer  and  a  benefactor,  if  he  cast  away  prejudice. 
Prejudice  cannot  consist  with  salad.  They  that  abjure 
cabbage  are  proud  stomachs,  and  they  that  fear  onion 
have  given  their  souls  to  their  neighbors.  Salad  without 
onion  is  like  blank  verse ;  it  needs  the  master  hand  to 
prevail  without  the  rhyme.  Unprejudiced,  he  that  finds 
not  a  salad  for  every  day,  or  fails  of  happy  solutions, 
is  either  improvident  or  dull. 

More  practical  minds  will  see  thrift  as  well  as  variety  in 
the  dispossession  of  flesh  meat.  Food  without  fire, 
pleasant  ministry  to  digestion  in  despite  of  the  cook,  may 
yet  win  the  mistress.  Meantime  our  hope  is  for  the 
master.  By  a  knack  at  the  bowl,  be  it  but  to  use  an  old 
savory  spoon,  or  to  slice  his  radishes,  or  to  insinuate 
garlic  or  cheese,  he  keeps  his  state.  His  digestion  is  not 
arrested  by  fear ;  his  conversation  is  secure.  Unless  he 
be  morose,  he  may  reign  at  his  table. 


WORDS  THAT  LAUGH  AND  CRYi 

BY 

Charles  Anderson  Dana 

During  the  period  after  the  Civil  War  the  New  York  Sun  became  one 
of  the  most  influential  newspapers  of  the  country  and  it  was  certainly 
one  of  the  best  written.  This  was  due  largely  to  the  power  of  its  great 
editor,  Charles  A.  Dana.  Although  himself  a  college  man,  a  man  of  wide 
cultivation  and  of  much  reading,  he  realized  the  necessity  of  precision 
and  conciseness  in  journalistic  editorials.  His  style  is  celebrated  for 
its  simplicity  and  for  its  effect.  There  is  never  any  doubt  as  to  the  mean- 
ing. In  the  following  editorial,  March  16,  1890,  he  states  vividly  the 
secret  of  good  writing,  namely,  feel  what  you  write.  The  first  paragraph 
states  concretely  the  fact  that  combinations  of  written  words  can  convey 
feeling.  Two  phases  of  this  thought  are  expanded  in  two  short  paragraphs. 
The  fourth,  and  final,  paragraph  emphasizes  the  thought  that  the  feeling 
must  first  be  in  the  writer,  returning  in  the  last  sentence  to  the  thought 
of  the  first  paragraph.  There  is  no  proof,  nor  any  reasoned  develop- 
ment of  the  thought.  Nor  is  any  necessary.  It  is  a  model  for  the  sim- 
plest form  of  exposition. 

.  '  'Did  it  ever  strike  you  that  there  was  anything  queer 
about  the  capacity  of  written  words  to  absorb  and  convey 
feehngs !  Taken  separately  they  are  mere  symbols  with 
no  more  feeling  to  them  than  so  many  bricks,  but  string 
them  along  in  a  row  under  certain  mysterious  conditions 
and  you  find  yourself  laughing  or  crying  as  your  eye  runs 
over  them.     That  words  should  convey  mere  ideas  is  not 

1  From  "Casual  Essays  of  the  Sun,"  by  permission  of  the  New  York 
Sun. 

55 


56  MODERN  ESSAYS 

so  remarkable.  "The  boy  is  fat,"  "  the  cat  has  nine  tails," 
are  statements  that  seem  obviously  enough  within  the 
power  of  written  language.  But  it  is  different  with  feel- 
ings. They  are  no  more  visible  in  the  symbols  that  hold 
them  than  electricity  is  visible  on  the  wire ;  and  yet  there 
they  are,  always  ready  to  respond  when  the  right  test 
jsapplied  by  the  right  person.  That  spoken  words, 
charged  with  human  tones  and  lighted  by  human  eyes, 
should  carry  feelings,  is  not  so  astonishing.  The  magnetic 
sympathy  of  the  orator  one  understands ;  he  might  affect 
his  audience,  possibly,  if  he  spoke  in  a  language  they  did 
not  know.  But  written  words :  How  can  they  do  itjj 
Suppose,  for  example,  that  you  possess  remarkable 
facility  in  grouping  language,  and  that  you  have  strong 
feelings  upon  some  subject,  which  finally  you  determine 
to  commit  to  paper.  Your  pen  runs  along,  the  words 
present  themselves,  or  are  dragged  out,  and  fall  into 
their  places.  You  are  a  gpod  deal  moved ;  here  you 
chuckle  to  yourself,  and  half  a  dozen  of  lines  further  down 
a  lump  comes  into  your  throat,  and  perhaps  you  have  to 
wipe  your  eyes.  You  finish,  and  the  copy  goes  to  the 
printer.  When  it  gets  into  print  a  reader  sees  it.  His 
eye  runs  along  the  lines  and  down  the  page  until  it  comes 
to  the  place  where  you  chuckled  as  you  wrote ;  then  he 
smiles,  and  six  lines  below  he  has  to  swallow  several  times 
and  snufiie  and  wink  to  restrain  an  exhibition  of  weakness. 
And  then  some  one  else  comes  along  who  is  not  so  good  a 
word  juggler  as  you  are,  or  who  has  no  feelings,  and 
swaps  the  words  about  a  little,  and  twists  the  sentences ; 
and  behold  the  spell  is  gone,  and  you  have  left  a  parcel 
of  written  language  duly  charged  with  facts,  but  without 
"^  single  feeling. 
y'l  No  one  can  juggle  with  words  with  any  degree  of  success 


WORDS  THAT  LAUGH  AND  CRY  57 

without  getting  a  vast  respect  for  their  independent 
abiHty.  They  will  catch  the  best  idea  a  man  ever  had  as 
it  flashes  through  his  brain,  and  hold  on  to  it,  to  surprise 
him  with  it  long  after,  and  make  him  wonder  that  he  was 
ever  man  enough  to  have  such  an  idea^  And  often.they 
will  catch  an  idea  on  its  way  from  tlie  braijattS  the  pen 
point,  turn,  twist,  and  improve  on  it  as  the  eye  winks, 
and  in  an  instant  there  they  are,  strung  hand  in  hand 
across  the  page  and  grinning  back  at  the  writer :  "This  is 
our  'd^a,  old  man;  not  yours  !" 

. ,  for  poetry,  every  word  that  expects  to  earn  its  salt 
111  poetry  should  have  a  head  and  a  pair  of  legs  of  its  own, 
to  go  and  find  its  place,  carrying  another  word,  if  neces- 
sary, on  its  back.  The  most  that  should  be  expected  of 
any  competent  poet  in  regular  practice  is  to  serve  a  general 
summons  and  notice  of  action  on  the  language.  If  the 
words  won't  do  the  rest  for  him  it  indicates  that  he  is 
/  ""(^uLpf  sympathy  with  his  tool 

[ jOfE^.Tyou  don't  find  feelings  in  written  words  unless 
^-^here  were  feelings  in  the  man  who  used  them/  With  all 
their  apparent  independence  they  seem  to  be  little  vessels 
that  hold  in  some  puzzling  fashion  exactly  what  is  put 
into  them.  You  can  put  tears  into  them,  as  though  they 
were  so  many  little  buckets ;  and  you  can  hang  smiles 
along  them,  like  Monday's  clothes  on  the  line,  or  you  can 
starch  them  with  facts  and  stand  them  up  like  a  picket 
fence ;  but  you  won't  get  the  tears  out  unless  you  first 
put  them  in.  Art  won't  put  them  ther^  It  is  like  the 
faculty  of  getting  the  quality  of  interest  into  pictures.  If 
the  quality  exists  in  the  artist's  mind  he  is  likely  to  find 
means  to  get  it  into  his  pictures,  but  if  it  isn't  in  the  man 
no  technical  skill  will  supply  it./|So,  if  the  feelings  are 
in  the  writer  and  he  knows  his  business,  they  will  get 


58  MODERN  ESSAYS 

into  the  words;  but  they  must  be  in  him  firs^  "It  isn't 
the  way  the  words  are  strung  together  that  makes  Lin- 
coln's Gettysburg  speech  immortal,  but  the  feelings  that 
were  in  the  ma,^4(jBut  how  do  such  little,  plain  words 
manage  to  keep  their  grip  on  such  feelings?  That  is 
the  miracle^  ' 


die 


♦ 


NATIONAL    CHARACTERISTICS   AS   MOULDING 

PUBLIC  OPINION  1 

BY 

James  Bryce 

"  The  noticeable  feature  in  the  following  essay  by  Ambassador  Bryce 
is  that  each  paragraph  is  an  independent  little  essay  by  itself.  The 
thought  of  the  paragraph  normally  is  expressed  in  the  first  sentence; 
for  example,  "All  the  world  knows  that  they  are  a  humorous  people." 
This  thought,  then,  is  repeated,  expanded,  and  illustrated  in  the  following 
sentences.  Consequently  the  total  thought  of  the  essay  may  be  gained 
by  summarising  the  first  sentences  of  all  the  paragraphs ;  the  Americans 
are  (a)  good-natured,  (b)  humorous,  (c)  hopeful,  (d)  democratic,  etc. 
Obviously,  the  value  of  such  an  extreme  form  of  the  catalogue  structure 
depends  upon  the  completeness  of  the  catalogue.  The  interest  consists 
first  in  the  personal  element,  what  such  a  man  as  Ambassador  Bryce, 
one  of  the  most  acute  thinkers  of  living  Englishmen,  predicates  of  us 
Americans ;  secondly,  in  the  interest  of  the  individual  paragraphs,  in 
the  illustrations,  and  in  the  anecdotes.  It  is,  therefore,  both  an  easy 
and  dangerous  form  for  the  beginner  to  attempt.  For,  although  he  can 
without  difficulty  construct  his  essay,  yet,  having  neither  the  analytic 
power  nor  the  background  of  Ambassador  Bryce,  he  will  fail  to  interest 
the  reader. 

As  the  public  opinion  of  a  people  is  even  more  directly 
than  its  political  institutions  the  reflection  and  expression 
of  its  character,  we  may  begin  the  analysis  of  opinion  in 
America  by  noting  soine  of  those  general  features  of 
national   character  which   give   tone   and   colour  to   the 

1  Chapter  80  of  "The  American  Commonwealth,"  1911.  Reprinted 
by  permission  of  The  Macmillan  Co. 

59 


60  MODERN   ESSAYS 

people's  thoughts  and  feelings  on  politics.     There  are,  of 
course,  varieties  proper  to  different  classes,  and  to  different 
parts  of  the  vast  territory  of  the  Union ;   but  it  is  well  to 
consider  first  such  characteristics  as  belong  to  the  nation 
as  a  whole,  and  afterwards  to  examine  the  various  classes 
and  districts  of  the  country.     And  when  I  speak  of  the 
nation,  I  mean  the  native  Americans.     What  follows  is 
not  applicable  to  the  recent  immigrants  from  Europe,  and, 
of  course,  even  less  applicable  to  the   Southern  negroes. 
The    Americans    are    a    good-natured    people,  l^indly, 
helpful  to  one  another,  disposed  to  take  a  charitable  view 
even  of  wrongdoers.     Their  ajiger  sometimes  flames  up, 
but  the  fire  is  soon  extinct.     Nowhere  is  cruelty  more 
abhorred.     Even  a  mob  lynching  a  horse  thief  in  the  West 
has  consideration  for  the  criminal,  and  will  give  him  a  good 
drink  of  whisky  before  he  is  strung  up.     Cruelty  to  slaves 
was  unusual  while  slavery  lasted,  the  best  proof  of  which 
is  the  quietness  of  the  slaves  during  the  war  when  all  the 
men  and  many  of  the  boys  of  the  South  were  serving  in 
the    Confederate    armies.     As    everybody    knows,    juries 
are  more  lenient  to  offences  of  all  kinds  but  one,  offences 
against  women,  than  they  are  anywhere  in  Europe.     The 
Southern  "rebels"  were  soon  forgiven;    and  though  civil 
wars  are  proverbially  bitter,  there  have  been  few  struggles 
in  which  the  combatants  did  so  many  little  friendly  acts 
for  one  another,  few  in  which  even  the  vanquished  have 
so  quickly  buried   their  resentments.      It   is   true    that 
newspapers  and  public  speakers  say  hard  things  of  their 
oy)ponents ;   but  this  is  a  part  of  the  game,  and  is  besides 
a  way  of  relieving  their  feelings :    the  bark  is  sometimes 
the  louder  in  order  that  a  bite  may  not  follow.     Vindictive- 
ness  shown  by  a  public  man  excites  general  disapproval, 
and  the  maxim  of  letting  bygones  be  bygones  is  pushed  so 


)^^R: 


NATION^  UHARACTERISTICS  61 

far  that  an  offender's  misdeeds  are  often  forgotten  when 
they  ought  to  be  remembered  against  him. 

All  the  world  knows  that  they  are  a  humorous  people. 
They  are  as  conspicuously  the  purveyors  of  humour  to 
the  nineteenth  century  as  the  French  were  the  purveyors 
of  wit  to  the  eighteenth.  Nor  is  this  sense  of  the  ludicrous 
side  of  things  confined  to  a  few  brilliant  writers.  It  is 
diffused  among  the  whole  people  ;  it  colours  their  ordinary 
life,  and  gives  to  their  talk  that  distinctively  new  flavour 
which  a  European  palate  enjoys.  Their  capacity  for  en- 
joying a  joke  against  themselves  was  oddly  illustrated  at 
the  outset  of  the  Civil  War,  a  time  of  stern  excitement, 
by  the  merriment  which  arose  over  the  hasty  retreat  of 
the  Federal  troops  at  the  battle  of  Bull  Run.  When 
William  M.  Tweed  was  ruling  and  robbing  New  York, 
and  had  set  on  the  bench  men  who  were  openly  prostitut- 
ing justice,  the  citizens  found  the  situation  so  amusing 
that  they  almost  forgot  to  be  angry.  Much  of  President 
Lincoln's  popularity,  and  much  also  of  the  gift  he  showed 
for  restoring  confidence  to  the  North  at  the  darkest 
moments  of  the  war,  was  due  to  the  humorous  way  he 
used  to  turn  things,  conveying  the  impression  of  not  being 
himself  uneasy,  even  when  he  was  most  so. 

That  indulgent  view  of  mankind  which  I  have  already 
mentioned,  a  view  odd  in  a  people  whose  ancestors  were 
penetrated  with  the  belief  in  original  sin,  is  strengthened 
by  this  wish  to  get  amusement  out  of  everything.  The 
want  of  seriousness  which  it  produces  may  be  more  ap- 
parent than  real.  Yet  it  has  its  significance;  for  people 
become  affected  by  the  language  they  use,  as  we  see  men 
grow  into  cynics  when  they  have  acquired  the  habit  of 
talking  cynicism  for  the  sake  of  effect. 

They  are  a  hopeful  people.     Whether  or  no  they  are 


62  MODERN  ESSAYS 

right  in  calling  themselves  a  new  people,  they  certainly 
seem  to  feel  in  their  veins  the  bounding  pulse  of  youth. 
They  see  a  long  vista  of  years  stretching  out  before  them, 
in  which  they  will  have  time  enough  to  cure  all  their 
faults,  to  overcome  all  the  obstacles  that  block  their 
path.  They  look  at  their  enormous  territory  with  its 
still  only  half-explored  sources  of  wealth,  they  reckon  up 
the  growth  of  their  population  and  their  products,  they 
contrast  the  comfort  and  intelligence  of  their  labouring 
classes  with  the  condition  of  the  masses  in  the  Old  World. 
They  remember  the  dangers  that  so  long  threatened  the 
Union  from  the  slave  power,  and  the  rebellion  it  raised,  and 
see  peace  and  harmony  now  restored,  the  South  more 
prosperous  and  contented  than  at  any  previous  epoch, 
perfect  good  feeling  between  all  sections  of  the  country. 
It  is  natural  for  them  to  believe  in  their  star.  And  this 
sanguine  temper  makes  them  tolerant  of  evils  which  they 
regard  as  transitory,  removable  as  soon  as  time  can  be 
found  to  root  them  up. 

They  have  unbounded  faith  in  what  they  call  the  People 
and  in  a  democratic  system  of  government.  The  great 
States  of  the  European  continent  are  distracted  by  the 
contests  of  Republicans  and  Monarchists,  and  of  rich  and 
poor,  —  contests  which  go  down  to  the  foundations  of 
government,  and  in  France  are  further  embittered  by 
religious  passions.  Even  in  England  the  ancient  Consti- 
tution is  always  under  repair,  and  while  some  think  it 
is  being  ruined  by  changes,  others  hold  that  further 
changes  are  needed  to  make  it  tolerable.  No  such  ques- 
tions trouble  native  American  minds,  for  nearly  everybody 
believes,  and  everybody  declares,  that  the  frame  of  govern- 
ment is  in  its  main  lines  so  excellent  that  such  reforms  as 
seem  called  for  need  not  touch  those  lines,  but  are  required 


NATIONAL  CHARACTERISTICS  63 

only  to  protect  the  Constitution  from  being  perverted 
by  the  parties.  Hence  a  further  confidence  that  the  people 
are  sure  to  decide  right  in  the  long  run,  a  confidence  in- 
evitable and  essential  in  a  government  which  refers  every 
question  to  the  arbitrament  of  numbers.  There  have, 
of  course,  been  instances  where  the  once  insignificant 
minority  proved  to  have  been  wiser  than  the  majority 
of  the  moment.  Such  was  eminently  the  case  in  the 
great  slavery  struggle.  But  here  the  minority  pre- 
vailed by  growing  into  a  majority  as  events  developed  the 
real  issues,  so  that  this  also  has  been  deemed  a  ground  for 
holding  that  all  minorities  which  have  right  on  their  side 
will  bring  round  their  antagonists,  and  in  the  long  run 
win  by  voting  power.  If  you  ask  an  intelligent  citizen 
why  he  so  holds,  he  will  answer  that  truth  and  justice 
are  sure  to  make  their  way  into  the  minds  and  consciences 
of  the  majority.  This  is  deemed  an  axiom,  and  the  more 
readily  so  deemed  because  truth  is  identified  with  com- 
mon sense,  the  quality  which  the  average  citizen  is  most 
confidently  proud  of  possessing,- 

This  feeling  shades  off  into  another,  externally  like  it, 
but  at  bottom  distinct  —  the  feeling  not  only  that  the 
majority,  be  it  right  or  wrong,  will  and  must  prevail,  but 
that  its  being  the  majority  proves  it  to  be  right.  This 
idea,  which  appears  in  the  guise  sometimes  of  piety  and 
sometimes  of  fatalism,  seems  to  be  no  contemptible  factor 
in  the  present  character  of  the  people.  It  will  be  more 
fully  dealt  with  in  a  later  chapter. 

The  native  Americans  are  an  educated  people,  compared 
with  the  whole  mass  of  the  population  in  any  European 
country  except  Switzerland,  parts  of  Germany,  Norway, 
Iceland,  and  Scotland ;  that  is  to  say,  the  average  of  knowl- 
edge is  higher,  the  habit  of  reading  and  thinking  more 


64  MODERN  ESSAYS 

generally  diffused,  than  in  any  other  country.  They  know 
the  Constitution  of  their  own  country,  they  follow  public 
affairs,  they  join  in  local  government  and  learn  from  it 
how  government  must  be  carried  on,  and  in  particular 
how  discussion  must  be  conducted  in  meetings,  and  its 
results  tested  at  elections.  The  Town  Meeting  was 
for  New  England  the  most  perfect  school  of  self- 
government  in  any  modern  country.  In  villages,  men 
used  to  exercise  their  minds  on  theological  questions, 
debating  points  of  Christian  doctrine  with  no  small  acute- 
ness.  Women  in  particular,  pick  up  at  the  public  schools 
and  from  the  popular  magazines  far  more  miscellaneous 
information  than  the  women  of  any  European  country 
possess,  and  this  naturally  tells  on  the  intelligence  of 
the  men.  Almost  everywhere  one  finds  women's  clubs  in 
which  literary,  artistic,  and  social  questions  are  discussed, 
and  to  which  men  of  mark  are  brought  to  deliver  lectures. 
That  the  education  of  the  masses  is  nevertheless  a 
superficial  education  goes  without  saying.  It  is  sufficient 
to  enable  them  to  think  they  know  something  about  the 
great  problems  of  politics :  insufficient  to  show  them  how 
little  they  know.  The  public  elementary  school  gives 
everybody  the  key  to  knowledge  in  making  reading  and 
writing  familiar,  but  it  has  not  time  to  teach  him  how  to 
use  the  key,  whose  use  is  in  fact,  by  the  pressure  of  daily 
work,  almost  confined  to  the  newspaper  and  the  magazine. 
So  we  may  say  that  if  the  political  education  of  the  average 
American  voter  be  compared  with  that  of  the  average 
voter  in  Europe,  it  stands  high ;  but  if  it  be  compared  with 
the  functions  which  the  theory  of  the  American  govern- 
ment lays  on  him,  which  its  spirit  implies,  which  the 
methods  of  its  party  organization  assume,  its  inadequacy 
is  manifest.     This  observation,  however,  is  not  so  much  a 


NATIONAL   CHARACTERISTICS  65 

reproach  to  the  schools,  which  generally  do  what  English 
schools  omit  —  instruct  the  child  in  the  principles  of  the 
Constitution  —  as  a  tribute  to  the  height  of  the  ideal 
which  the  American  conception  of  popular  rule  sets  up. 

For  the  functions  of  the  citizen  are  not,  as  has  hitherto 
been  the  case  in  Europe,  confined  to  the  choosing  of  legis- 
lators, who  are  then  left  to  settle  issues  of  policy  and  select 
executive  rulers.  The  American  citizen  is  one  of  the 
governors  of  the  Republic.  Issues  are  decided  and  rulers 
selected  by  the  direct  popular  vote.  Elections  are  so 
frequent  that  to  do  his  duty  at  them  a  citizen  ought  to 
be  constantly  watching  public  affairs  with  a  full  compre- 
hension of  the  principles  involved  in  them,  and  a  judgment 
of  the  candidates  derived  from  a  criticism  of  their  argu- 
ments as  well  as  a  recollection  of  their  past  careers.  The 
instruction  received  in  the  common  schools  and  from  the 
newspapers,  and  supposed  to  be  developed  by  the  practice 
of  primaries  and  conventions,  while  it  makes  the  voter 
deem  himself  capable  of  governing,  does  not  fit  him  to 
weigl^  the  real  merits  of  statesmen,  to  discern  the  true 
grouiids  on  which  questions  ought  to  be  decided,  to  note 
the  /drift  of  events  and  discover  the  direction  in  which 
parties  are  behig  carried.  He  is  like  a  sailor  who  knows 
the  spars  and  ropes  of  the  ship  and  is  expert  in  working 
her,  but  is  ignorant  of  geography  and  navigation  ;  who  can 
perceive  that  some  of  the  officers  are  smart  and  others  dull, 
but  cannot  judge  which  of  them  is  qualified  to  use  the 
sextant  or  will  best  keep  his  head  during  a  hurricane. 

They  are  a  moral  and  well-conducted  people.  Setting 
aside  the  colluvies  gentium,  which  one  finds  in  Western 
mining  camps,  now  largely  filled  by  recent  immigrants, 
and  which  popular  literature  has  presented  to  Europeans 
as  far  larger  than  it  really  is,  setting  aside  also  the  rabble 


66  MODERN  ESSAYS 

of  a  few  great  cities  and  the  negroes  of  the  South,  the 
average  of  temperance,  chastity,  truthfuhiess,  and  general  - 
probity  is  somewhat  higher  than  in  any  of  the  great 
nations  of  Europe.  The  instincts  of  the  native  farmer 
or  artisan  are  almost  invariably  kindly  and  charitable. 
He  respects  the  law ;  he  is  deferential  to  women  and 
indulgent  to  children ;  he  attaches  an  almost  excessive 
value  to  the  possession  of  a  genial  manner  and  the  observ- 
ance of  domestic  duties. 

They  are  also  —  and  here  again  I  mean  the  people  of 
native  American  stock,  especially  in  the  Eastern  and 
Middle  States  —  on  the  whole,  a  religious  people.  It  is  not 
merely  that  they  respect  religion  and  its  ministers,  for 
that  one  might  say  of  Russians  or  Sicilians,  not  merely 
that  they  are  assiduous  church-goers  and  Sunday-school 
teachers,  but  that  they  have  an  intelligent  interest  in  the 
form  of  faith  they  profess,  are  pious  without  supersti- 
tion, and  zealous  without  bigotry.  The  importance  which 
some  still,  though  all  much  less  than  formerly,  attach 
to  dogmatic  propositions,  does  not  prevent  them  from 
feeling  the  moral  side  of  their  theology.  Christianity 
influences  conduct,  not  indeed  half  as  much  as  in  theory 
it  ought,  but  probably  more  than  it  does  in  any  other 
modern  country,  and  far  more  than  it  did  in  the  so- 
called  ages  of  faith. 

Nor  do  their  moral  and  religious  impulses  remain  in  the 
soft  haze  of  self-complacent  sentiment.  The  desire  to 
expunge  or  cure  the  visible  evils  of  the  world  is  strong. 
Nowhere  are  so  many  philanthropic  and  reformatory 
agencies  at  work.  Zeal  outruns  discretion,  outruns  the 
possibilities  of  the  case,  in  not  a  few  of  the  efforts  made, 
as  well  by  legislation  as  by  voluntary  action,  to  suppress 
vice,  to  prevent  intemperance,  to  purify  popular  literature. 


NATIONAL  CHARACTERISTICS  67 

Religion  apart,  they  are  an  unreverential  people.  I 
do  not  mean  irreverent,  —  far  from  it ;  nor  do  I  mean 
that  they  have  not  a  great  capacity  for  hero-worship, 
as  they  have  many  a  time  shown.  I  mean  that  they  are 
little  disposed,  especially  in  public  questions  —  political, 
economical,  or  social  —  to  defer  to  the  opinions  of  those 
who  are  wiser  or  better  instructed  than  themselves. 
Everything  tends  to  make  the  individual  independent 
and  self-reliant.  He  goes  early  into  the  world ;  he  is  left 
to  make  his  way  alone ;  he  tries  one  occupation  after 
another,  if  the  first  or  second  venture  does  not  prosper; 
he  gets  to  think  that  each  man  is  his  own  best  helper  and 
adviser.  Thus  he  is  led,  I  will  not  say  to  form  his  own 
opinions,  for  few  are  those  who  do  that,  but  to  fancy 
that  he  has  formed  them,  and  to  feel  little  need  of  aid 
from  others  towards  correcting  them.  There  is,  there- 
fore, less  disposition  than  in  Europe  to  expect  light 
and  leading  on  public  affairs  from  speakers  or  writers. 
Oratory  is  not  directed  towards  instruction,  but  towards 
stimulation.  Special  knowledge,  which  commands  def- 
erence in  applied  science  or  in  finance,  does  not  command 
it  in  politics,  because  that  is  not  deemed  a  special  subject, 
but  one  within  the  comprehension  of  every  practical 
man.  Politics  is,  to  be  sure,  a  profession,  and  so  far  might 
seem  to  need  professional  aptitudes.  But  the  professional 
politician  is  not  the  man  who  has  studied  statesmanship, 
but  the  man  who  has  practised  the  art  of  running  conven- 
tions, and  winning  elections. 

Even  that  strong  point  of  America,  the  completeness 
and  highly  popular  character  of  local  government,  con- 
tributes to  lower  the  standard  of  attainment  expected  in 
a  public  man,  because  the  citizens  judge  of  all  politics 
by  the  politics  they  see  first  and  know  best,  —  those  of 


68  MODERN   ESSAYS 

their  township  or  city,  —  and  fancy  that  he  who  is  fit 
to  be  selectman,  or  county  commissioner,  or  alderman,  is 
fit  to  sit  in  the  great  council  of  the  nation.  Like  the 
shepherd  in  Virgil,  they  think  the  only  difference  between 
their  town  and  Rome  is  in  its  size,  and  believe  that  what 
does  for  Lafayetteville  will  do  well  enough  for  Washing- 
ton. Hence  when  a  man  of  statesmanlike  gifts  appears, 
he  has  little  encouragement  to  take  a  high  and  statesman- 
like tone,  for  his  words  do  not  necessarily  receive  weight 
from  his  position.  He  fears  to  be  instructive  or  hortatory, 
lest  such  an  attitude  should  expose  him  to  ridicule ;  and 
in  America  ridicule  is  a  terrible  power.  Nothing  escapes 
it.  Few  have  the  courage  to  face  it.  In  the  indulgence 
of  it  even  this  humane  race  can  be  unfeeling. 

They  are  a  busy  people.  I  have  already  observed  that 
the  leisured  class  is  relatively  small,  is  in  fact  confined 
to  a  few  Eastern  cities.  The  citizen  has  little  time  to 
think  about  political  problems.  Engrossing  all  the 
working  hours,  his  avocation  leaves  him  only  stray 
moments  for  this  fundamental  duty.  It  is  true  that  he 
admits  his  responsibilities,  considers  himself  a  member 
of  a  party,  takes  some  interest  in  current  events.  But 
although  he  would  reject  the  idea  that  his  thinking  should 
be  done  for  him,  he  has  not  leisure  to  do  it  for  himself, 
and  must  practically  lean  upon  and  follow  his  party. 
It  astonished  me  in  1870  and  1881  to  find  how  small 
a  part  politics  played  in  conversation  among  the  best 
educated  classes  and  generally  in  the  cities.  Since  1896 
there  has  been  a  livelier  and  more  constant  interest  in 
public  affairs  ;  yet  even  now  business  matters  so  occupy 
the  mind  of  the  financial  and  commercial  classes,  and 
athletic  competitions  the  minds  of  the  uneducated  classes 
and  of  the  younger  sort  in  all  classes,  that  political  ques- 


NATIONAL  CHARACTERISTICS  69 

tions  are  apt,  except  at  critical  moments,  to  fall  into  the 
background.^  In  a  presidential  year,  and  especially  during 
the  months  of  a  presidential  campaign,  there  is,  of  course, 
abundance  of  private  talk,  as  well  as  of  public  speaking, 
but  even  then  the  issues  raised  are  largely  personal  rather 
than  political  in  the  European  sense.  But  at  other  times 
the  visitor  is  apt  to  feel  —  more,  I  think,  than  he  feels 
anywhere  in  Britain  —  that  his  host  has  been  heavily 
pressed  by  his  own  business  concerns  during  the  day,  and 
that  when  the  hour  of  relaxation  arrives  he  gladly  turns 
to  lighter  and  more  agreeable  topics  than  the  state  of  the 
nation.  This  remark  is  less  applicable  to  the  dwellers 
in  villages.  There  is  plenty  of  political  chat  round  the 
store  at  the  cross  roads,  ahd  though  it  is  rather  in  the 
nature  of  gossip  than  of  debate,  it  seems,  along  with  the 
practice  of  local  government,  to  sustain  the  interest  of 
ordinary  folk  in  public  affairs.^ 

The  want  of  serious  and  sustained  thinking  is  not  con- 
fined to  politics.  One  feels  it  even  more  as  regards 
economical  and  social  questions.  To  it  must  be  ascribed 
the  vitality  of  certain  prejudices  and  fallacies  which 
could  scarcely  survive  the  continuous  application  of  such 

^  The  increased  space  given  to  athletics  and  games  of  all  sorts  in  the 
newspapers  marks  a  change  in  public  taste  no  less  striking  here  than 
it  is  in  Britain,  As  it  is  equally  striking  in  the  British  Colonies,  one 
may  take  it  as  a  feature  common  to  the  modern  English-speaking  world, 
and  to  that  world  only,  for  it  is  scarcely  discernible  in  Continental 
Europe. 

^  The  European  country  where  the  common  people  best  understand 
politics  is  Switzerland.  That  where  they  talk  most  about  politics  is, 
I  think,  Greece.  I  remember,  for  instance,  in  crossing  the  channel 
which  divides  Cephalonia  from  Ithaca,  to  have  heard  the  boatmen  dis- 
cuss a  recent  ministerial  crisis  at  Athens,  during  the  whole  voyage,  with 
the  liveliest  interest  and  apparently  some  knowledge. 


70  MODERN  ESSAYS 

vigorous  minds  as  one  finds  among  the  Americans.  Their 
quick  perceptions  serve  them  so  well  in  business  and  in 
the  ordinary  affairs  of  private  life  that  they  do  not  feel 
the  need  for  minute  investigation  and  patient  reflection 
on  the  underlying  principles  of  things.  They  are  apt  to 
ignore  difficulties,  and  when  they  can  no  longer  ignore 
them,  they  will  evade  them  rather  than  lay  siege  to  them 
according  to  the  rules  of  art.  The  sense  that  there  is  no 
time  to  spare  haunts  an  American^even  when  he  might 
find  the  time,  and  would  do  best  for  himself  by  finding  it. 

Some  one  will  say  that  an  aversion  to  steady  thinking 
belongs  to  the  average  man  everywhere.  True.  But 
less  is  expected  from  the  average  man  in  other  countries 
than  from  a  people  who  have  carried  the  doctrine  of  pop- 
ular sovereignty  further  than  it  has  ever  been  carried  be- 
fore. They  are  tried  by  the  standard  which  the  theory 
of  their  government  assumes.  In  other  countries  states- 
men or  philosophers  do,  and  are  expected  to  do,  the  solid 
thinking  for  the  bulk  of  the  people.  Here  the  people  are 
supposed  to  do  it  for  themselves.  To  say  that  they  do  it 
imperfectly  is  not  to  deny  them  the  credit  of  doing  it  better 
than  a  European  philosopher  might  have  predicted. 

They  are  a  commercial  people,  whose  point  of  view  is 
primarily  that  of  persons  accustomed  to  reckon  profit 
and  loss.  Their  impulse  is  to  apply  a  direct  practical  test 
to  men  and  measures,  to  assume  that  the  men  who  have 
got  on  fastest  are  the  smartest  men,  and  that  a  scheme 
which  seems  to  pay  well  deserves  to  be  supported.  Ab- 
stract reasonings  they  dislike,  subtle  reasonings  they 
suspect ;  they  accept  nothing  as  practical  which  is  not 
plain,  downright,  apprehensible  by  an  ordinary  under- 
standing. Although  open-minded,  so  far  as  willingness 
to  listen  goes,  they  are  hard  to  convince,  because  they 


NATIONAL  CHARACTERISTICS  71 

have  really  made  up  their  minds  on  most  subjects,  having 
adopted  the  prevailing  notions  of  their  locality  or  party 
as  truths  due  to  their  own  reflection. 

It  may  seem  a  contradiction  to  remark  that  with  this 
shrewdness  and  the  sort  of  h^ardness  it  produces,  they 
are  nevertheless  an  impressionable  people.  Yet  this  is 
true.  It  is  not  their  intellect,  however,  that  is  impression- 
able, but  their  imagination  and  emotions,  which  respond 
in  unexpected  ways  to  appeals  made  on  behalf  of  a  cause 
which  seems  to  have  about  it  something  noble  or  pathetic. 
They  are  capable  of  an  ideality  surpassing  that  of  English- 
men or  Frenchmen. 

They  are  an  unsettled  people.  In  no  State  of  the  Union 
is  tlie-hulk  of  the  population  so  fixed  in  its  residence  as 
everywhere  in  Europe ;  in  some  it  is  almost  nomadic. 
Except  in  the  more  stagnant  parts  of  the  South, 
nobody  feels  rooted  to  the  soil.  Here  to-day  and  gone 
to-morrow,  he  cannot  readily  contract  habits  of  trustful 
dependence  on  his  neighbours.  Community  of  interest, 
or  of  belief  in  such  a  cause  as  temperance,  or  protection 
for  native  industry,  unites  him  for  a  time  with  others 
similarly  minded,  but  congenial  spirits  seldom  live  long 
enough  together  to  form  a  school  or  type  of  local  opinion 
which  develops  strength  and  becomes  a  proselytizing  force. 
Perhaps  this  tends  to  prevent  the  growth  of  variety  in 
opinion.  When  a  man  arises  with  some  power  of  original 
thought  in  politics,  he  is  feeble  if  isolated,  and  is  depressed 
by  his  insignificance,  whereas  if  he  grows  up  in  favourable 
soil  with  sympathetic  minds  around  him,  whom  he  can 
in  prolonged  intercourse  permeate  with  his  ideas,  he  learns 
to  speak  with  confidence  and  soars  on  the  wings  of  his 
disciples.  One  who  considers  the  variety  of  conditions 
under  which  men  live  in  America  may  certainly  find 


72  MODERN  ESSAYS 

ground  for  surprise  that  there  should  be  so  few  independent 
schools  of  opinion. 

But  even  while  an  unsettled,  they  are  nevertheless  an 
associative,  because  a  sympathetic  people.  Although 
the  atoms  are  in  constant  motion,  they  have  a  strong 
attraction  for  one  another.  Each  man  catches  his  neigh- 
bour's sentiment  more  quickly  and  easily  than  happens 
with  the  English.  That  sort  of  reserve  and  isolation,  that 
tendency  rather  to  repel  than  to  invite  confidence,  which 
foreigners  attribute  to  the  Englishman,  though  it  belongs 
rather  to  the  upper  and  middle  class  than  to  the  nation 
generally,  is,  though  not  absent,  yet  less  marked  in 
America.^  It  seems  to  be  one  of  the  notes  of  difference 
between  the  two  branches  of  the  race.  In  the  United 
States,  since  each  man  likes  to  feel  that  his  ideas  raise 
in  other  minds  the  same  emotions  as  in  his  own,  a  senti- 
ment or  impulse  is  rapidly  propagated  and  quickly  con- 
scious of  its  strength.  Add  to  this  the  aptitude  for  or- 
ganization which  their  history  and  institutions  have 
educed,  and  one  sees  how  the  tendency  to  form  and  the 
talent  to  work  combinations  for  a  political  or  any  other 
object  has  become  one  of  the  great  features  of  the  country. 
Hence,  too,  the  immense  strength  of  party.  It  rests  not 
only  on  interest  and  habit  and  the  sense  of  its  value  as  a 
means  of  working  the  government,  but  also  on  the  sym- 
pathetic element  and  instinct  of  combination  ingrained 
in  the  national  character. 

'  I  do  not  mean  that  Americans  are  more  apt  to  unbosom  themselves 
to  strangers,  but  that  they  have  rather  more  adaptiveness  than  the  Eng- 
lish, and  are  less  disposed  to  stand  alone  and  care  nothing  for  the  opinion 
of  others.  It  is  worth  noticing  that  Americans  travelling  abroad  seem 
to  get  more  easily  into  touch  with  the  inhabitants  of  the  country  than 
the  English  do ;  nor  have  they  the  English  habit  of  calling  those  inhab- 
itants —  Frenchmen,  foi  instance,  or  Germans  —  "the  natives." 


NATIONAL  CHARACTERISTICS  73 

They  are  a  changeful  people.  Not  fickle,  for  they 
are  if  anything  too  tenacious  of  ideas  once  adopted,  too 
fast  bound  by  party  tics,  too  willing  to  pardon  the  errors 
of  a  cherished  leader.  But  they  have  what  chemists  call 
low  specific  heat ;  they  grow  warm  suddenly  and  cool  as 
suddenly  ;  they  are  liable  to  swift  and  vehement  outbursts 
of  feeling  which  rush  like  wildfire  across  the  country, 
gaining  glow,  like  the  wheel  of  a  railway  car,  by  the 
accelerated  motion.  The  very  similarity  of  ideas  and 
equality  of  conditions  which  makes  them  hard  to  convince 
at  first  makes  a  conviction  once  implanted  run  its  course 
the  more  triumphantly.  They  seem  all  to  take  flame 
at  once,  because  wdiat  has  told  upon  one,  has  told  in  the 
same  way  upon  all  the  rest,  and  the  obstructing  and 
separating  barriers  which  exist  in  Europe  scarcely  exist 
here.  Nowhere  is  the  saying  so  appKcable  that  nothing 
succeeds  like  success.  The  n&,tive  American  or  so-called 
Know-nothing  party  had  in  two  years  from  its  foundation 
become  a  tremendous  force,  running,  and  seeming  for  a 
time  likely  to  carry,  its  own  presidential  candidate.  In 
three  years  more  it  was  dead  without  hope  of  revival. 
Now  and  then,  as  for  instance  in  the  elections  of  1874-75, 
and  again  in  those  of  1890,  there  comes  a  rush  of  feeling 
so  sudden  and  tremendous,  that  the  name  of  Tidal  Wave 
has  been  invented  to  describe  it. 

After  this  it  may  seem  a  paradox  to  add  that  the  Ameri- 
cans are  a  conservative  people.  Yet  any  one  who  ob-  a 
serves  the  power  of  habit  among  them,  the  tenacity  with  " 
which  old  institutions  and  usages,  legal  and  theological 
formulas,  have  been  clung  to,  will  admit  the  fact. 
Moreover,  prosperity  helps  to  make  them  conservative. 
They  are  satisfied  with  the  world  they  live  in,  for  they 
have  found  it  a  good  world,  in  which  th^  have  grown  rich 


74  MODERN  ESSAYS 

and  can  sit  under  their  own  vine  and  fig  tree,  none  making 
them  afraid.  They  are  proud  of  their  history  and  of 
their  Constitution,  which  has  come  out  of  the  furnace  of 
civil  war  with  scarcely  the  smell  of  fire  upon  it.  It  is 
little  to  say  that  they  do  not  seek  change  for  the  sake 
of  change,  because  the  nations  that  do  this  exist  only  in 
the  fancy  of  alarmist  philosophers.  There  are  nations, 
however,  whose  impatience  of  existing  evils,  or  whose 
proneness  to  be  allured  by  visions  of  a  brighter  future, 
makes  them  under-estimate  the  risk  of  change,  nations  that 
will  pull  up  the  plant  to  see  whether  it  has  begun  to  strike 
root.  This  is  not  the  way  of  the  Americans.  They  are 
no  doubt  ready  to  listen  to  suggestions  from  any  quarter. 
They  do  not  consider  that  an  institution  is  justified  by 
its  existence,  but  admit  everything  to  be  matter  for 
criticism.  Their  keenly  competitive  spirit  and  pride  in 
their  own  ingenuity  have  made  them  quicker  than  any 
other  people  to  adopt  and  adapt  inventions :  telephones 
were  in  use  in  every  little  town  over  the  West,  while  in 
the  city  of  London  men  were  just  beginning  to  wonder 
whether  they  could  be  made  to  pay.  The  Americans 
have  doubtless  of  late  years  become,  especially  in  the 
West,  an  experimental  people,  so  far  as  politics  and  social 
legislation  are  concerned.  Yet  there  is  also  a  sense  in 
which  they  are  at  bottom  a  conservative  people,  in  virtue 
both  of  the  deep  instincts  of  their  race  and  of  that 
practical  shrewdness  which  recognizes  the  value  of 
permanence  and  solidity  in  institutions.  They  are  con- 
servative in  their  fundamental  beliefs,  in  the  structure 
of  their  governments,  in  their  social  and  domestic  usages. 
They  are  like  a  tree  whose  pendulous  shoots  quiver  and 
rustle  with  the  lightest  breeze,  while  its  roots  enfold  the 
rock  with  a  grasp  which  storms  cannot  loosen. 


AMERICAN   MANNERS! 

BY 
Wu   TiNGFANG 

The  following  essay  should  be  compared  with  the  preceding  one  by 
Lord  Bryce,  because  of  its  similar  structure,  and  the  fact  that  the  problem 
is  the  same  in  each  case  —  a  sympathetic  study  of  certain  American 
characteristics  by  a  distinguished  foreigner.  In  the  first  paragraph  the 
statement  is  made  that  Americans  have  been  accused  of  bad  manners ; 
in  the  second,  that  Chinese  manners  have  also  been  adversely  criticized, 
but  for  directly  opposite  reasons.  This  gives  the  key  to  the  plan  of 
the  whole  essay,  which  in  nearly  every  paragraph  brings  out  some  par- 
ticular characteristic  of  American  manners  by  contrast  with  the  Chinese. 
This  contrast  is  shown  by  illustration  and  personal  experience.  Ameri- 
can manners,  the  author  concludes,  are  the  result  of  two  predominant 
characteristics,  a  love  of  independence  and  equality,  and  an  abhorrence 
of  waste  of  time.  This  is  stated  about  the  middle  of  the  essay,  and  after 
further  elaboration,  again  at  the  close.  Thus  the  form  of  the  essay  is  a 
catalogue,  tied  in  the  middle  and  at  the  end  with  the  one  unifying  thought 
which  is  deduced  from  the  material  given. 

Much  has  been  written  and  more  said  about  American 
manners,  or  rather  the  American  lack  of  manners.  Ameri- 
cans have  frequently  been  criticized  for  their  bad  breeding, 
and  many  sarcastic  references  to  American  deportment 
have  been  made  in  my  presence.  I  have  even  been  told, 
I  do  not  know  how  true  it  is,  that  European  diplomats 

1  From  "America  Through  the  Spectacles  of  an  Oriental  Diplomat," 
by  permission  of  the  publishers,  Frederick  A.  Stokes  Co.  and  Mr. 
William  Morrow,  literary  representative  of  Dr.  Wu  Tingfang. 

75 


76  MODERN  ESSAYS 

dislike  being  stationed  in  America,  because  of  their  aver- 
sion to  the  American  way  of  doing  things. 

Much  too  has  been  written  and  said  about  Chinese 
manners,  not  only  by  foreigners  but  also  by  Chinese. 
One  of  the  classics,  which  our  youth  have  to  know  by 
heart,  is  practically  devoted  entirely  to  manners.  There 
has  also  been  much  adverse  criticism  of  our  manners  or 
our  excess  of  manners,  though  I  have  never  heard  that 
any  diplomats  have,  on  this  account,  objected  to  being 
sent  to  China.  We  Chinese  are  therefore  in  the  same 
boat  as  the  Americans.  In  regard  to  manners  neither  of 
us  find  much  favor  with  foreigners,  though  for  diametri- 
cally opposite  reasons :  the  Americans  are  accused  of 
observing  too  few  formalities,  and  we  of  being  too  formal. 

The  Americans  are  direct  and  straightforward.  They 
will  tell  you  to  your  face  that  they  like  you,  and  occasion- 
ally they  also  have  very  little  hesitation  in  telling  you 
that  they  do  not  like  you.  They  say  frankly  just  what 
they  think.  It  is  immaterial  to  them  that  their  remarks 
are  personal,  complimentary  or  otherwise.  I  have  had 
members  of  my  own  family  complimented  on  their  good 
looks  as  if  they  were  children.  In  this  respect  Americans 
differ  greatly  from  the  English.  The  English  adhere  with 
meticulous  care  to  the  rule  of  avoiding  everything  personal. 
They  are  very  much  afraid  of  rudeness  on  the  one  hand, 
and  of  insincerity  or  flattery  on  the  other  Even  in  the 
matter  of  such  a  harmless  affair  as  a  compliment  to  a 
foreigner  on  his  knowledge  of  English,  they  will  precede 
it  with  a  request  for  pardon  and  speak  in  a  half-apologetic 
manner,  as  if  complimenting  were  something  personal. 
The  English  and  the  Americans  are  closely  related,  they 
have  much  in  common,  but  they  also  differ  widely,  and 
in  nothing   is  the  difference   more  conspicuous  than   in 


AMERICAN  MANNERS  77 

their  conduct.  I  have  noticed  curiously  enough  that 
EngHsh  Colonials,  especially  in  such  particulars  as  speech 
and  manners,  follow  their  quondam  sister  colony,  rather 
than  the  mother  country.  And  this,  not  only  in  Canada, 
where  the  phenomenon  might  be  explained  by  climatic, 
geographic,  and  historic  reasons,  but  also  in  such  antipo- 
dean places  as  Australia  and  South  Africa,  which  are 
so  far  away  as  to  apparently  have  very  little  in  common 
either  with  America  or  with  each  other.  Nevertheless, 
whatever  the  reason,  the  transplanted  Englishman, 
whether  in  the  arctics  or  the  tropics,  whether  the  Northern 
or  the  Southern  Hemisphere,  seems  to  develop  a  type 
quite  different  from  the  original  stock,  yet  always  resem- 
bling his  fellow  emigrants. 

The  directness  of  Americans  is  seen  not  only  in  what 
they  say  but  in  the  way  they  say  it.  They  come  directly 
to  the  point,  without  much  preface  or  introduction, 
much  less  is  there  any  circumlocution  or  "beating  about 
the  bush."  When  they  come  to  see  you  they  say  their 
say  and  then  take  their  departure,  moreover  they  say  it 
in  the  most  terse,  concise  and  unambiguous  manner. 
In  this  respect  what  a  contrast  they  are  to  us !  We 
always  approach  each  other  with  preliminary  greetings. 
Then  we  talk  of  the  weather,  of  politics  or  friends,  of 
anything,  in  fact,  which  is  as  far  as  possible  from  the 
object  of  the  visit.  Only  after  this  introduction  do  we 
broach  the  subject  uppermost  in  our  minds,  and  through- 
out the  conversation  polite  courtesies  are  exchanged  when- 
ever the  opportunity  arises.  These  elaborate  preludes  and 
interludes,  may,  to  the  strenuous  ever-in-a-hurry  American, 
seem  useless  and  superfluous,  but  they  serve  a  good  pur- 
pose. Like  the  common  courtesies  and  civilities  of  life 
they  pave  the  way  for  the   speakers,  especially    if   they 


78  MODERN  ESSAYS 

are  strangers ;  they  improve  their  tempers,  and  place 
them  generally  on  terms  of  mutual  understanding.  It  is 
said  that  some  years  ago  a  Foreign  Consul  in  China, 
having  a  serious  complaint  to  make  on  behalf  of  his 
national,  called  on  the  Taotai,  the  highest  local  authority 
in  the  port.  He  found  the  Chinese  official  so  genial  and 
polite  that  after  half  an  hour's  conversation,  he  advised 
the  complainant  to  settle  the  matter  amicably  without 
troubling  the  Chinese  officials  about  the  matter.  A 
good  deal  may  be  said  in  behalf  of  both  systems.  The 
American  practice  has  at  least  the  merit  of  saving  time, 
an  all  important  object  with  the  American  people.  When 
we  recall  that  this  remarkable  nation  will  spend  millions  of 
dollars  to  build  a  tunnel  under  a  river,  or  to  shorten  a 
curve  in  a  railroad,  merely  that  they  may  save  two  or 
three  minutes,  we  are  not  surprised  at  the  abruptness 
of  their  speech.  I,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  when  thinking  of 
their  time-saving  and  abrupt  manner  of  address,  have 
been  somewhat  puzzled  to  account  for  that  peculiar  drawl 
of  theirs.  Very  slowly  and  deliberately  they  enunciate 
each  word  and  syllable  with  long-drawn  emphasis,  punc- 
tuating their  sentences  with  pauses,  some  short  and  some 
long.  It  is  almost  an  effort  to  follow  a  story  of  any 
length  —  the  beginning  often  becomes  cold  before  the 
end  is  reached.  It  seems  to  me  that  if  Americans  would 
speed  up  their  speech  after  the  fashion  of  their  English 
cousins,  who  speak  two  or  three  times  as  quickly,  they 
would  save  many  minutes  every  day,  and  would  find  the 
habit  not  only  more  efficacious,  but  much  more  economical 
than  many  of  their  time-saving  machines  and  tunnels.  I 
offer  this  suggestion  to  the  great  American  nation  for  what 
it  is  worth,  and  I  know  they  will  receive  it  in  the  spirit  in 
which  it  is  made,  for  they  have  the  saving  sense  of  humor. 


AMERICAN  MANNERS  79 

Some  people  are  ridiculously  sensitive.  Some  years  ago, 
at  a  certain  place,  a  big  dinner  was  given  in  honor  of  a 
notable  who  was  passing  through  the  district.  A  Chinese, 
prominent  in  local  affairs,  who  had  received  an  invitation, 
discovered  that  though  he  would  sit  among  the  honored 
guests  he  would  be  placed  below  one  or  two  whom  he 
thought  he  ought  to  be  above,  and  who,  he  therefore  con- 
sidered, would  be  usurping  his  rightful  position.  In 
disgust  he  refused  to  attend  the  dinner,  which,  excepting 
for  what  he  imagined  was  a  breach  of  manners,  he  would 
have  been  very  pleased  to  have  attended.  Americans 
are  much  more  sensible.  They  are  not  a  bit  sensitive, 
especially  in  small  matters.  Either  they  are  broad- 
minded  enough  to  rise  above  unworthy  trifles,  or  else 
their  good  Americanism  prevents  their  squabbling  over 
questions  of  precedence,  at  the  dinner  table  or  elsewhere. 

Americans  act  up  to  their  Declaration  of  Independence, 
especially  the  principle  it  enunciates  concerning  the 
equality  of  man.  They  lay  so  much  importance  on 
this  that  they  do  not  confine  its  application  to  legal  rights, 
buf  extend  it  even  to  social  intercourse.  In  fact,  I  think 
this  doctrine  is  the  basis  of  the  so-called  American  manners. 
All  men  are  deemed  socially  equal,  whether  as  friend  and 
friend,  as  President  and  citizen,  as  employer  and  em- 
ployee, as  master  and  servant,  or  as  parent  and  child. 
Their  relationship  may  be  such  that  one  is  entitled  to 
demand,  and  the  other  to  render,  certain  acts  of  obedience, 
and  a  certain  amount  of  respect,  but  outside  that  they  are 
on  the  same  level.  This  is  doubtless  a  rebellion  against 
all  the  social  ideas  and  prejudices  of  the  old  world,  but  it  is 
perhaps  only  what  might  be  looked  for  in  a  new  country, 
full  of  robust  and  ambitious  manhood,  disdainful  of  all 
traditions  which  in  the  least  savor  of  monarchy  or  hier- 


80  MODERN  ESSAYS 

archy,  and  eager  to  blaze  as  new  a  path  for  itself  in  the 
social  as  it  has  succeeded  in  accomplishing  in  the  political 
world.  Combined  with  this  is  the  American  characteristic 
of  saving  time.  Time  is  precious  to  all  of  us,  but  to 
Americans  it  is  particularly  so.  We  all  wish  to  save  time, 
but  the  Americans  care  much  more  about  it  than  the  rest 
of  us.  Then  there  are  different  notions  about  this  ques- 
tion of  saving  time,  different  notions  of  what  wastes 
time  and  what  does  not,  and  much  which  the  old  world 
regards  as  politeness  and  good  manners  Americans  con- 
sider as  sheer  waste  of  time.  Time  is,  they  think,  far 
too  precious  to  be  occupied  with  ceremonies  which  appear 
empty  and  meaningless.  It  can,  they  say,  be  much  more 
profitably  filled  with  other  and  more  useful  occupations. 
In  any  discussion  of  American  manners  it  would  be  unfair 
to  leave  out  of  consideration  their  indifference  to  ceremony 
and  their  highly  developed  sense  of  the  value  of  time,  but 
in  saying  this  I  do  not  forget  that  many  Americans  are 
devout  ritualists,  and  that  these  find  both  comfort  and 
pleasure  in  ceremony,  which  suggests  that  after  all  there 
is  something  to  be  said  for  the  Chinese  who  have  raised 
correct  deportment  almost  to  the  rank  of  a  religion. 

The  youth  of  America  have  not  unnaturally  caught  the 
spirit  of  their  elders,  so  that  even  children  consider  them- 
selves as  almost  on  a  par  with  their  parents,  as  almost  on 
the  same  plane  of  equality ;  but  the  parents,  on  the  other 
hand,  also  treat  them  as  if  they  were  equals,  and  allow 
them  the  utmost  freedom.  While  a  Chinese  child  renders 
unquestioning  obedience  to  his  parents'  orders,  such 
obedience  as  a  soldier  yields  to  his  superior  officer,  the 
American  child  must  have  the  whys  and  the  wherefores 
duly  explained  to  him,  and  the  reason  for  his  obedience 
made  clear.     It   is   not   his   parent   that   he   obeys,   but 


AMERICAN  MANNERS  81 


expediency  and  the  dictates  of  reason.     Here  we  see  the 
clear-headed,  sound,  common-sense  business  man  in  the 
making.     The  early  training  of  the  boy  has  laid  the  foun- 
dation for  the  future  man.     The  child  too  has  no  compunc- 
tion in  correcting  a  parent  even  before  strangers,   and 
what  is  stranger  still  the  parent  accepts  the  correction 
in    good    part,    and    sometimes    even    with    thanks.     A 
parent  is  often  interrupted  in  the  course  of  a  narrative, 
or  discussion,  by  a  small  piping  voice,  setting  right,  or 
what  it  believes  to  be  right,  some  date,  place,  or  fact, 
and  the  parent,  after  a  word  of  encouragement  or  thanks, 
proceeds.     How  different  is  our  rule  that  a  child  is  not 
to  speak  until  spoken  to !     In  Chinese  official  life  under 
the  old  regime  it  was  not  etiquette  for  one  official  to  con- 
tradict another,   especially  when  they  were  unequal   in 
rank.     When  a  high  official  expressed  views  which  his 
subordinates  did  not  endorse,  they  could  not  candidly  give 
their   opinion,   but   had   to   remain   silent.     I   remember 
that  some  years  ago  some  of  my  colleagues  and  I  had  an 
audience  with  a  very  high  official,  and  when  I  expressed 
my  dissent  from  some  of  the  views  of  that  high  function- 
ary, he  rebuked  me  severely.     Afterward  he  called  me 
to  him  privately,  and  spoke  to  me  somewhat  as  follows : 
"  What  you  said  just  now  was  quite  correct.     I  was  wrong, 
and  I  will  adopt  your  views,  but  you  must  not  contradict 
me  in  the  presence  of  other  people.     Do  not  do  it  again." 
There  is  of  course  much  to  be  said  for  and  against  each 
system,  and  perhaps  a  blend  of  the  two  would  give  good 
results.     Anyhow,  we  can  trace  in  American  customs  that 
spirit  of  equality  which  pervades  the  whole  of  American 
society,  and  observe  the  germs  of  self-reliance  and  inde- 
pendence  so   characteristic  of  Americans,  whether  men, 
women,  or  children. 

G 


82  MODERN  ESSAYS 

Even  the  domestic  servant  does  not  lose  this  precious 
American  heritage  of  equality.  I  have  nothing  to  say 
against  that  worthy  individual,  the  American  servant 
(if  one  can  be  found) ;  on  the  contrary,  none  is  more 
faithful  or  more  efficient.  But  in  some  respects  he  is 
unique  among  the  servants  of  the  world.  He  does  not 
see  that  there  is  any  inequality  between  him  and  his 
master.  His  master,  or  should  I  say,  his  employer, 
pays  him  certain  wages  to  do  certain  work,  and  he  does  it, 
but  outside  the  bounds  of  this  contract,  they  are  still 
man  and  man,  citizen  and  citizen.  It  is  all  beautifully, 
delightfully  legal.  The  washerwoman  is  the  "wash- 
lady,"  and  is  just  as  much  a  lady  as  her  mistress.  The 
word  "servant"  is  not  applied  to  domestics,  "help"  is 
used  instead,  very  much  in  the  same  way  that  Canada 
and  Australia  are  no  longer  English  "colonies,"  but 
"self-governing  dominions." 

We  of  the  old  world  are  accustomed  to  regard  domestic 
service  as  a  profession  in  which  the  members  work  for 
advancement,  without  much  thought  of  ever  changing 
their  position.  A  few  clever  persons  may  ultimately  adopt 
another  profession,  and,  according  to  our  antiquated 
conservative  ways  of  thinking,  rise  higher  in  the  social 
scale,  but,  for  the  large  majority,  the  dignity  of  a  butler, 
or  a  housekeeper  is  the  height  of  ambition,  the  crowning 
point  in  their  career.  Not  so  the  American  servant. 
Strictly  speaking  there  are  no  servants  in  America.'  The 
man,  or  the  woman  as  the  case  may  be,  who  happens 
for  the  moment  to  be  your  servant,  is  only  servant  for 
the  time  being.  He  has  no  intention  of  making  domes- 
tic service  his  profession,  of  being  a  servant  for  the  whole 
of  his  life.  To  have  to  be  subject  to  the  will  of  others, 
even  to  the  small  extent  to  which  American  servants 


AiVIERiCAN  If^NT^^S  83 

are  subordinate,  is  offensive  to  an  American's  pride  of 
citizenship,  it  is  contrary  to  his  conception  of  American 
equahty.  He  is  a  servant  only  for  the  time,  and  until 
he  finds  something  better  to  do.  He  accepts  a  menial 
position  only  as  a  stepping  stone  to  some  more  independent 
employment.  Is  it  to  be  wondered  at  that  American 
servants  have  different  manners  from  their  brethren  in 
other  countries  ?  When  foreigners  find  that  American 
servants  are  not  like  servants  in  their  own  country,  they 
should  not  resent  their  behavior :  it  does  not  denote 
disrespect,  it  is  only  the  outcrop  of  their  natural  inde- 
pendence and  aspirations. 

All  titles  of  nobility  are  by  the  Constitution  expressly 
forbidden.  Even  titles  of  honor  or  courtesy  are  but  rarely 
used.  "Honorable"  is  used  to  designate  members  of 
Congress ;  and  for  a  few  Americans,  such  as  the  President 
and  the  Ambassadors,  the  title  "Excellency"  is  permitted. 
Yet,  whether  it  is  because  the  persons  entitled  to  be  so 
addressed  do  not  think  that  even  these  mild  titles  are  con- 
sistent with  American  democracy,  or  because  the  American 
public  feels  awkward  in  employing  such  stilted  terms  of 
address,  they  are  not  often  used.  I  remember  that  on 
one  occasion  a  much  respected  Chief  Executive,  on  my 
proposing,  in  accordance  with  diplomatic  usage  and 
precedent,  to  address  him  as  "Your  Excellency,"  begged 
me  to  substitute  instead  "Mr.  President."  The  plain 
democratic  "Mr."  suits  the  democratic  American  taste 
much  better  than  any  other  title,  and  is  applied  equally 
to  the  President  of  the  Republic  and  to  his  coachman. 
Indeed,  the  plain  name  John  Smith,  without  even  "Mr.," 
not  only  gives  no  offense,  where  some  higher  title  might 
be  employed,  but  fits  just  as  well,  and  is  in  fact  often 
used.     Even   prominent   and   distinguished   men   do   not 


84  MODERN  ESSAYS 

resent  nicknames ;  for  example,  the  celebrated  person 
whose  name  is  so  intimately  connected  with  that  delight 
of  American  children  and  grown-ups  —  the  "Teddy  Bear." 
This  characteristic,  like  so  many  other  American  charac- 
teristics, is  due  not  only  to  the  love  of  equality  and  in- 
dependence, but  also  to  the  dislike  of  any  waste  of  time, 
j  In  countries  where  there  are  elaborate  rules  of  etiquette 
concerning  titles  and  forms  of  address,  none  but  a  Master  of 
Ceremonies  can  hope  to  be  thoroughly  familiar  with 
them,  or  to  be  able  to  address  the  distinguished  people 
without  withholding  from  them  their  due  share  of  high- 
sounding  titles  and  epithets ;  and,  be  it  whispered,  these 
same  distinguished  people,  however  broad-minded  and 
magnanimous  they  may  be  in  other  respects,  are  some- 
times extremely  sensitive  in  this  respect.  And  even 
after  one  has  mastered  all  the  rules  and  forms,  and  can 
appreciate  and  distinguish  the  various  nice  shades  which 
exist  between  "His  Serene  Highness,"  "His  Highness," 
"His  Royal  Highness,"  and  "His  Imperial  Highness,"  or 
between  "Rt.  Rev."  and  "Most  Rev.,"  one  has  yet  to 
learn  what  titles  a  particidar  person  has,  and  with  what 
particular  form  of  address  he  should  be  approached, 
an  impossible  task  even  for  a  Master  of  Ceremonies,  unless 
he  always  has  in  his  pocket  a  Burke's  Peerage  to  tell  him 
who's  who.  What  a  waste  of  time,  what  an  inconvenience, 
and  what  an  unnecessary  amount  of  irritation  and  annoy- 
ance all  this  causes.  How  much  better  to  be  able  to 
address  any  person  you  meet  simply  as  Mr.  So-and-So, 
without  unwittingly  treading  on  somebody's  sensitive 
corns  !  Americans  have  shown  their  common  sense  in 
doing  away  with  titles  altogether,  an  example  which  the 
sister  Republic  of  China  is  following.  An  illustrious  name 
loses  nothing  for  having  to  stand  by  itself  without  pre- 


AMERICAN  MANNERS  85 

fixes  and  sufiixes,  handles  and  tails.  Mr.  Gladstone  was 
no  less  himself  for  not  prefixing  his  name  with  Earl,  and 
the  other  titles  to  which  it  would  have  entitled  him,  as 
he  could  have  done  had  he  not  declined  the  so-called 
honor.  Indeed,  like  the  "Great  Commoner,"  he,  if 
that  were  possible,  endeared  himself  the  more  to  his 
countrymen  because  of  his  refusal.  A  name,  which  is 
great  without  resorting  to  the  borrowed  light  of  titles 
and  honors,  is  greater  than  any  possible  suffix  or  affix 
which  could  be  appended  to  it. 
i'*^  In  conclusion,  American  manners  are  but  an  instance 
or  result  of  the  two  predominant  American  characteristics 
to  which  I  have  already  referred,  and  which  reappear  in 
so  many  other  things  American.  A  love  of  independence 
and  of  equality,  early  inculcated,  and  a  keen  abhorrence 
of  waste  of  time,  engendered  by  the  conditions  and  cir- 
cumstances of  a  new  country,  serve  to  explain  practically 
all  the  manners  and  mannerisms  of  Americans.  Even 
the  familiar  spectacle  of  men  walking  with  their  hands 
deep  in  their  trousers'  pockets,  or  sitting  with  their  legs 
crossed  needs  no  other  explanation,  and  to  suggest  that, 
because  Americans  have  some  habits  which  are  peculiarly 
their  own,  they  are  either  inferior  or  unmanly,  would  be 
to  do  them  a  grave  injustice. 

Few  people  are  more  warm-hearted,  genial,  and  sociable 
than  the  Americans.  I  do  not  dwell  on  this,  because  it  is 
quite  unnecessary.  The  fact  is  perfectly  familiar  to  all 
who  have  the  slightest  knowledge  of  them.  Their  kind- 
ness and  warmth  to  strangers  are  particularly  pleasant, 
and  are  much  appreciated  by  their  visitors.  In  some  other 
countries,  the  people,  though  not  unsociable,  surround 
themselves  with  so  much  reserve  that  strangers  are  at 
first  chilled  and  repulsed,  although  there  are  no  pleasanter 


86  MODERN  ESSAYS 

or  more  hospitable  persons  anywhere  to  be  found  when 
once  you  have  broken  the  ice,  and  learned  to  know  them ; 
but  it  is  the  stranger  who  must  make  the  first  advances, 
for  they  themselves  will  make  no  effort  to  become  ac- 
quainted, and  their  manner  is  such  as  to  discourage  any 
efforts  on  the  part  of  the  visitor.  You  may  travel  with 
them  for  hours  in  the  same  car,  sit  opposite  to  them, 
and  all  the  while  they  will  shelter  themselves  behind  a 
newspaper,  the  broad  sheets  of  which  effectively  prohibit 
any  attempts  at  closer  acquaintance.  The  following 
instance,  culled  from  a  personal  experience,  is  an  illustra- 
tion. I  was  a  law  student  at  Lincoln's  Inn,  London, 
where  there  is  a  splendid  law  library  for  the  use  of  the 
students  and  members  of  the  Inn.  I  used  to  go  there 
almost  every  day  to  pursue  my  legal  studies,  and  generally 
sat  in  the  same  quiet  corner.  The  seat  on  the  opposite 
side  of  the  table  was  usually  occupied  by  another  law 
student.  For  months  we  sat  opposite  each  other  without 
exchanging  a  word.  I  thought  I  was  too  formal  and  re- 
served, so  I  endeavored  to  improve  matters  by  occasionally 
looking  up  at  him  as  if  about  to  address  him,  but  every 
time  I  did  so  he  looked  down  as  though  he  did  not  wish 
to  see  me.  Finally  I  gave  up  the  attempt.  This  is  the 
general  habit  with  English  gentlemen.  They  will  not 
speak  to  a  stranger  without  a  proper  introduction  ;  but  in 
the  case  I  have  mentioned  surely  the  rule  would  have 
been  more  honored  by  a  breach  than  by  the  observance. 
Seeing  that  we  were  fellow  students,  it  might  have  been 
presumed  that  we  were  gentlemen  and  on  an  equal  foot- 
ing. How  different  are  the  manners  of  the  American ! 
You  can  hardly  take  a  walk,  or  go  for  any  distance  in  a 
train,  without  being  addressed  by  a  stranger,  and  not  in- 
frequently making  a  friend.     In  some  countries  the  fact 


AMERICAN   MANNERS  87 

that  you  are  a  foreigner  only  thickens  the  ice,  in  America 
it  thaws  it.  This  dehghtful  trait  in  the  American  character 
is  also  traceable  to  the  same  cause  as  that  which  has  helped 
us  to  explain  the  other  peculiarities  which  have  been 
mentioned.  To  good  Americans,  not  only  are  the  citizens 
of  America  born  equal,  but  the  citizens  of  the  world  are 
also  born  equal. 


FRANKLIN ' 

>*.  BY 

Henry  Cabot  Lodge 

The  catalogue  form  may  be  used  also  as  a  convenient  summary  for  a 
man's  achievements.  On  the  two  hundredth  anniversary  of  Franklin's 
birth  Henry  Cabot  Lodge,  the  brilliant  Senator  from  Massachusetts, 
was  asked  to  contribute  an  appreciation.  Evidently  there  were  eight 
features  in  Franklin's  life  and  character  that  he  felt  significant :  (a) 
Franklin's  temperament,  (6)  his  character,  (c)  the  breadth  of  his  in- 
terest, etc.  This,  the  real  essay,  is  introduced  by  two  paragraphs 
of  general  appreciation,  and  three  paragraphs  in  which  the  background 
is  indicated.  The  same  general  scheme  is  followed  also  within  the 
paragraph  development.  The  first  sentence  usually  summarizes  the 
preceding  thought,  and  the  second  introduces  the  main  thought  of 
the  paragraph.     Then  this  is  expanded  and  explained. 

Many  years  ago,  when  in  London  for  the  first  time,  I 
remember  being  filled  with  the  indignant  astonishment  of 
which  youth  alone  is  capable  at  seeing  upon  the  pedestal 
of  a  statue  placed  in  a  public  square  the  single  word 
"Franklin."  A  Boston  boy,  born  within  a  stone's  throw 
almost  of  the  birthplace  of  "Poor  Richard,"  I  had  never 
deemed  it  possible  that  any  Franklin  but  one  could  be 
referred  to  by  that  name  alone  without  further  definition 
or  qualification.  I  knew,  of  course,  who  the  subject  of 
the  British  statue  was,  a  brave  naval  ofiicer  and  bold  ex- 
plorer, who  had  lost  his  life  in  a  futile  effort  to  achieve  an 
almost  equally  futile  object.     But  I  had  a  vague  impres- 

1  From  "A  Frontier  Town  and  Other  Essays,"  by  permission  of  the 
publishers,  Charles  Scribner's  Sons. 

88 


FRANKLIN  89 

sion  that  "heroic  sailor  souls"  had  very  fortunately  been 
not  uncommon  among  English-speaking  people,  whereas 
I  had  supposed  that  men  like  Benjamin  Franklin  had 
been  rather  rare  among  the  people  of  any  race.  I  have 
passed  the  British  statue  many  times  since  then.  My 
youthful  and  indignant  astonishment  has  long  since 
vanished,  and  the  humor  of  the  inscription  has  become 
very  apparent  to  me.  I  know  now  that  the  inscription 
merely  represents  a  solid  British  habit  of  claiming  every- 
thing, ignoring  the  rest  of  mankind,  and  enlarging  to  the 
utmost  their  own  achievements,  both  great  and  small, 
upon  the  entirely  sound  principle  that  a  constant  and  fear- 
less assertion  of  one's  own  virtues  will  lead  a  considerable 
proportion  of  a  very  busy  and  somewhat  indifferent  world 
to  take  one  at  one's  own  valuation.  The  highly  humorous 
side  of  describing  Sir  John  as  the  only  Franklin,  and 
relegating  to  obscurity  a  man  who  achieved  greatness  in 
literature,  in  science,  in  politics,  and  in  diplomacy,  and 
who  was  one  of  the  most  brilliant  figures  in  a  brilliant 
century,  has  come  in  the  lapse  of  time  to  give  me  no  little 
real  pleasure. 

I  have  also  learned  that  my  early  estimate  of  the  man 
commonly  referred  to  outside  of  England  as  "Franklin" 
was  not  only  vague,  but,  although,  right  in  direction,  was 
still  far  short  of  the  truth,  which  a  better  knowledge  enables 
me  to  substitute  for  an  ill-defined  belief.  Two  hundred 
years  have  elapsed  since  his  birth  in  the  little  house  on 
Milk  Street  in  Boston,  and  as  the  anniversary  of  that 
event  is  now  being  celebrated,  it  is  well  worth  while  to 
pause  for  a  moment  and  consider  him.  Few  men,  be 
it  said,  better  deserve  consideration,  for  he  not  only 
played  a  great  part  in  shaping  events  and  influencing 
human  thought,  but  he  represents  his  time  more  com- 


90  MODERN  ESSAYS 

pletely,  perhaps,  than  any  other  actor  in  it,  something 
which  is  always  in  and  of  itself  a  memorable  feat. 

Franklin's  time  was  the  eighteenth  century,  which  his 
long  life  nearly  covered.  When  he  was  born  Anne  was 
Queen,  and  England,  agitated  by  dynastic  struggles,  was 
with  difficulty  making  head  against  the  world-wide  power 
of  Louis  XIV.  When  Franklin  died  France  had  been 
driven  from  North  America,  the  British  Empire  had  been 
divided,  his  own  being  one  of  the  master  hands  in  the 
division,  the  United  States  of  America  had  started  on 
their  career  as  a  nation,  and  the  dawning  light  of  the 
French  Revolution  was  beginning  to  redden  the  skies. 
Marvellous  changes  these  to  be  enclosed  within  the  span 
of  one  brief  human  life,  and  yet  they  were  only  part  of 
the  story.  The  truth  is  that  the  eighteenth  century  was 
a  very  remarkable  period.  Not  so  very  long  ago  this 
statement  would  have  been  regarded  as  a  rather  silly 
paradox,  and  in  a  little  while  it  will  be  looked  upon  as  a 
commonplace.  But  as  yet  we  are  not  wholly  free  from 
the  beliefs  of  our  fathers  in  this  respect.  The  nineteenth 
century,  in  its  lusty  youth  and  robust  middle  age,  adopted 
as  part  of  its  creed  the  belief  that  its  predecessor  upon  the 
roll  of  time,  from  whose  loins  it  sprang,  deserved  only 
the  contempt  and  hatred  of  mankind.  Incited  thereto 
by  the  piercing  invectives  of  the  Romantic  school,  brim- 
ming over  with  genius,  and  just  then  in  possession  of  the 
earth,  and  by  the  clamors  of  Thomas  Carlyle,  the  nine- 
teenth century  held  that  the  eighteenth  was  a  period  of 
shams  and  conventions,  of  indifference  and  immorality, 
of  unspeakable  oppressions  and  of  foul  miseries  hidden 
behind  a  gay  and  glittering  exterior,  the  heyday  of  a 
society  which  in  a  word  deserved  the  fate  of  the 
cities  of  the  plain. 


FRANKLIN  91 

This  view  was  true  enough,  so  far  as  it  went ;  but  it  was 
by  no  means  the  whole  story.  It  had  the  fascination  of 
simphcity  and  of  convenience  which  half-truths  nearly 
always  possess ;  but  as  Mr.  Speaker  Reed  once  said, 
"half-truths  are  simple,  but  the  whole  truth  is  the  most 
complicated  thing  on  earth."  The  time  has  now  come 
when  we  may  begin  to  approximate  the  whole  truth. 
Indeed,  before  the  nineteenth  century  had  closed  it  had 
begun  to  modify  its  opinions  and  to  be  less  sure  about  the 
total  depravity  of  its  progenitor.  Under  the  skilful 
manipulations  of  bric-a-brac  dealers  the  art  and  furniture 
of  the  eighteenth  century  have  become  and  are  now  the 
fashion.  It  is  a  pretty  trivial  art  at  best,  very  inferior 
to  that  which  the  nineteenth  century,  in  France  at  least, 
has  produced ;  but  it  is  always  pleasant  to  observe  the 
whirligig  of  time  bring  in  its  revenges,  and  it  must  be 
admitted  that  the  eighteenth-century  furniture  is  an  in- 
describable improvement  over  the  dreadful  taste  known 
as  Victorian,  but  which  really  came  forth  like  the  Goths 
and  Vandals  of  old  time  from  the  heart  of  Germany,  to 
submerge  and  ruin  a  careless  and  unsuspecting  world. 
Still,  whatever  their  merits  may  be,  the  eighteenth  century 
in  pictures  and  chairs  and  tables  is  again  in  high  fashion, 
and  perhaps  we  can  now  begin  to  see  also  that  it  had  its 
great  side  as  well  as  its  bad  one,  and  that  it  was  in  reality 
a  very  wonderful  time. 

It  is  usually  said  as  beyond  dispute  that  it  had  no  poetry 
in  the  nobler  and  more  imaginative  sense ;  and  if  by  poetry 
is  meant  the  immortal  work  of  the  Elizabethans  on  the 
one  hand,  and  of  the  Romantic  school  on  the  other,  we 
may  be  sure  that,  speaking  broadly,  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury, like  Audrey,  was  not  poetical.  Yet  none  the  less 
this  unpoetical,  unimaginative  century  produced  Gray  and 


92  MODERN  ESSAYS 

Burns  in  Great  Britain,  Chenier  and  Gilbert  in  France,  the 
first  part  of  "Faust"  —  enough  glory  in  itself  for  many 
centuries  —  and  the  "Wallenstein  Trilogy"  in  Germany. 
It  was,  too,  the  century  of  Bach  and  Handel  and  Haydn ; 
it  gave  birth  to  Mozart  and  Beethoven,  —  something  of  a 
record  for  an  unimaginative  century  in  the  most  imagina- 
tive of  arts.  Even  those  who  decry  it  most  admit  its  great- 
ness in  prose,  where  it  developed  a  style  which  culminated 
in  Gibbon  and  Burke.  In  pure  intellect  it  can  hardly  be 
surpassed  by  any  of  its  fellows,  for  it  was  the  century  of 
Immanuel  Kant.  It  was  likewise  the  century  of  Louis 
XV,  perhaps  the  meanest  thing  that  accident  ever  cast 
upon  a  throne,  but  it  was  also  the  century  of  Frederick 
the  Great.  It  was  illustrated  in  its  youth  by  the  Regent 
Orleans,  and  illuminated  at  its  close  by  George  Washing- 
ton. It  was  the  century  of  Casanova,  most  typical  and 
amusing  of  rascals,  and  it  was  equally  the  century  of  John 
Wesley.  It  was  a  time  when  men  persecuted  for  a  religion 
in  which  they  had  no  faith,  and  sneered  at  the  doctrines 
of  the  church  to  which  they  conformed.  The  classes 
revelled  in  luxury,  and  the  masses  were  sunk  in  poverty. 
Corruption  ran  riot  in  the  public  service,  and  the  oppres- 
sion of  the  people  was  without  limit  on  the  Continent,  where 
the  lettre  de  cachet  of  the  French  king  flung  men  into  prison, 
and  wretched  German  princelings  sold  their  subjects  to 
die  in  foreign  wars  that  they  might  build  ugly  palaces  and 
maintain  still  more  ugly  mistresses.  Yet  in  those  evil 
days  more  was  done  to  set  free  human  thought  and  strike 
off  the  shackles  of  priestly  rule  than  in  any  century  which 
history  records.  More  was  then  done  to  give  men  political 
liberty  and  build  up  constitutional  government  than  in  all 
the  previous  centuries,  for  it  was  the  century  of  Montes- 
quieu and  Rousseau  and  the  Federalist,  of  the  revolt  of 


FRANKLIN  93 

the  American  Colonies  and  of  the  French  Revolution.  It 
was  the  century  of  kings  and  nobles,  yet  it  gave  birth  to 
modern  democracy.  The  spirit  of  revolt  went  side  by 
side  with  the  spirit  of  reaction  and  convention.  There 
were  indeed  two  voices  in  the  eighteenth  century.  We 
know  which  one  truly  foretold  the  coming  days.  But 
which  was  the  true  voice  of  the  time  ?  Was  it  Voltaire, 
pleading  the  cause  of  the  Galas  family,  or  that  of  Foulon, 
declaring  that  the  people  might  eat  grass  .f*  Which  was 
the  true  leader,  George  Washington  at  Valley  Forge,  or 
George  III  hiring  Indians  and  Hessians  to  carry  out  his 
mother's  injunction,  "George,  be  a  king".'*  It  was  veri- 
tably a  wonderful  century,  full  of  meaning,  rich  in  intel- 
lect, abounding  in  contradictions. 

It  produced,  too,  many  great  men,  but  none  more  fully 
representative  than  Benjamin  Franklin  of  all  that  made  it 
memorable.  He  reflected  at  once  its  greatness  and  its 
contradictions,  although  not  its  evil  side,  because  in  those 
years  of  change  and  ferment  he  was  ranged  with  the 
children  of  light,  and  was  ever  reaching  out  for  new  and 
better  things.  Of  pure  English  stock,  born  in  a  commu- 
nity where  Puritanism  was  still  dominant,  where  religion 
was  rigid  and  morality  austere,  he  was  an  adventurer  in 
his  youth,  a  liberal  always,  a  free-thinker  in  religion,  the 
moralist  of  common-sense,  and  pre-eminently  the  man 
of  the  world,  at  home  in  all  societies  and  beneath  every 
sky.  He  had  the  gift  of  success,  and  he  went  on  and  up 
from  the  narrow  fortunes  of  a  poor,  hard-working  family 
until  he  stood  in  the  presence  of  kings  and  shaped  the 
destinies  of  nations. 

The  Puritanism  to  which  he  was  born  fell  away  from 
him  at  the  start,  and  in  his  qualities  and  his  career  it 
seems  as  if  he  reproduced  the  type  of  the  men  of  Eliza- 


94  MODERN  ESSAYS 

beth's  time  who  founded  Virginia  and  New  England ;  for 
he  had  all  the  versatility,  the  spirit  of  adventure,  the 
enormous  vitality  and  splendid  confidence  in  life  and  in 
the  future  which  characterized  that  great  epoch.  Yet  he 
had  also  the  calmness,  the  self-control,  the  apparent  ab- 
sence of  enthusiasm  which  were  the  note  of  his  own  time. 
The  restlessness  of  mind  which  marked  the  Elizabethans 
was  his  in  a  high  degree,  but  it  was  masked  by  a  cool  and 
calculating  temperament  rarely  found  in  the  days  of  the 
great  Queen. 

Franklin  was  born  not  only  a  Puritan  Englishman,  but 
a  colonist ;  yet  never  was  there  a  man  with  less  of  the 
colonist  or  the  provincial  about  him.  A  condition  of 
political  dependence  seems  for  some  mysterious  reason  to 
have  a  depressing  effect  upon  those  who  remain  continu- 
ously in  that  condition.  The  soil  of  a  dependency  appears 
to  be  unfavorable  to  the  production  of  ability  of  a  high 
type  in  any  direction  until  the  generation  arrives  which 
is  ready  to  set  itself  free.  Franklin  was  a  colonial  subject 
until  he  was  seventy,  and  yet  no  more  independent  man 
than  he  lived  in  that  age  of  independent  thought.  He  rose 
to  the  highest  distinction  in  four  great  fields  of  activity, 
any  one  of  which  would  have  sufficed  for  a  life's  ambition ; 
he  moved  easily  in  the  society  of  France  and  England,  he 
appeared  at  the  most  brilliant  court  in  Europe,  and  no 
one  ever  thought  of  calling  him  provincial.  The  atmos- 
phere of  a  dependency  never  clung  to  him,  nor  in  the 
heyday  of  aristocracy  was  his  humble  origin  ever  remem- 
bered. The  large-mindedness,  the  complete  independence, 
the  entire  simplicity  of  the  man  dispersed  the  one  and 
destroyed  the  memory  of  the  other. 

Modern  history  contains  very  few  examples  of  a  man 
who,  with  such  meagre  opportunities  and  confined  for 


FRANKLIN  95 

many  years  to  a  province  far  distant  from  the  centres  of 
civilization,  achieved  so  much  and  showed  so  much  abihty 
in  so  many  different  ways  as  FrankHn.  With  only  the 
education  of  the  common  school  and  forced  to  earn  his 
living  while  still  a  boy,  he  became  a  man  of  wide  learning, 
pre-eminent  in  science,  and  a  writer,  in  the  words  of  one 
of  the  first  of  English  critics,^  "of  supreme  literary  skill." 
His  autobiography  is  one  of  the  half-dozen  great  autobiog- 
raphies which  are  a  perennial  joy.  His  letters  are  charm- 
ing, and  his  almanacs  (was  there  ever  a  more  unlikely 
vehicle  for  good  literature?)  were  translated  into  many 
languages,  delighted  with  their  homely  wisdom  and  easy 
humor  thousands  who  thought  of  America  only  as  the 
abode  of  wolves  and  Indians,  and  made  the  name  of 
"Poor  Richard"  familiar  to  the  civilized  world.  Yet 
literature,  where  he  attained  such  a  success,  winning  a 
high  place  in  the  literary  history  not  only  of  his  own 
country,  but  of  his  age  and  his  language,  was  but  his 
pastime.  The  intellectual  ambition  of  his  life  was  found 
in  science,  and  he  went  so  far  in  that  field  that  the  history 
of  one  of  the  great  natural  forces,  which  in  its  development 
has  changed  the  world,  cannot  be  written  without  giving 
one  of  the  first  places  of  pioneer  and  discoverer  to  the 
printer  of  Boston  and  Philadelphia. 

Yet  neither  literature  nor  science,  either  of  which  is 
quite  enough  to  fill  most  lives,  sufficed  for  Franklin.  He 
began  almost  at  the  very  beginning  to  take  a  share  in 
public  affairs.  His  earliest  writings  when  a  printer  at 
the  case  dealt  with  political  questions.  He  then  entered 
the  politics  of  the  city,  thence  he  passed  to  the  larger 
concerns  of  the  great  Province  of  Pennsylvania,  and  at 
every   step   he   showed   a   capacity   for  organization,   an 

^  Mr.  Augustine  Birrell,  in  his  essay  on  "Old  Booksellers." 


96  MODERN  ESSAYS 

ability  for  managing  men  and  a  power  of  persuasive  speech 
rarely  equalled.  He  had  a  way  of  carrying  measures  and 
securing  practical  and  substantive  results  which  excites 
profound  admiration,  since  nothing  is  more  difficult  than 
such  achievements  in  the  whole  range  of  public  service. 
This  is  especially  true  where  the  man  who  seeks  results 
is  confronted  by  active  opposition  or  by  that  even  more 
serious  obstacle,  the  inertness  or  indifference  of  the  com- 
munity. Yet  nothing  pleased  Franklin  more  than  such  a 
situation  as  arose  when  in  time  of  war  he  overcame  the 
Quaker  opposition  to  putting  the  province  in  a  state  of 
defence.  His  method  was  not  as  a  rule  that  of  direct 
attack.  He  preferred  to  outw^it  his  opponents,  an  opera- 
tion which  gratified  his  sense  of  humor;  and  a  favorite 
device  of  his  was  to  defeat  opposition  by  putting  forward 
anonymously  arguments  apparently  in  its  behalf,  which, 
by  their  irony  and  extravagance,  utterly  discredited  the 
cause  they  professed  to  support.  To  his  success  in  the 
field  of  public  discussion  he  added  that  of  administration 
when  he  became  Postmaster-General  for  the  colonies  and 
organized  the  service,  and  then  again  when  he  represented 
Pennsylvania  and  later  other  provinces  as  their  agent  in 
London.  It  was  there  in  England  that  he  defended  the 
cause  of  the  colonies  before  both  Parliament  and  Ministers 
when  resistance  to  taxation  began.  He  came  home  an 
old  man,  verging  on  seventy,  to  take  his  place  as  one  of 
the  chief  leaders  in  the  Revolution.  These  leaders  of 
revolution  were,  as  a  rule  and  as  is  usual  at  such  periods, 
young  men,  and  yet  there  was  not  one  among  them  all 
with  greater  flexibility  of  mind  or  more  perfect  readiness 
to  bring  on  the  great  change  than  Franklin.  He  returned 
again  to  Europe  to  seek  aid  for  his  country  in  the  war,  and 
it  was  chiefly  due  to  him  that  the  French  alliance,  which 


FRANKLIN  97 

turned  the  scale,  was  formed.  When  the  war  drew  to  a 
close  it  was  he  who  began  alone  the  task  of  making  peace. 
He  had  nearly  completed  the  work  when  his  colleagues 
appeared  in  Paris  and  by  incautious  words  broke  the  web 
so  carefully  spun.  Patient  and  undisturbed,  Franklin  be- 
gan again.  Again  he  played  one  English  faction  against  the 
other.  Again  he  managed  France,  turning  to  good  advan- 
tage the  vigorous  abilities  of  Adams  and  the  caution  of 
Jay.  Finally,  boldly  disregarding  the  instructions  of 
Congress,  he  emerged  from  all  complications  with  a 
triumphant  peace. 

Even  then  his  work  was  not  done.  He  came  back  to 
America  to  govern  in  Pennsylvania  and  to  share  in  making 
the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  thus  exhibiting 
the  power  to  build  up  as  well  as  to  pull  down,  something 
most  uncommon,  for  the  man  of  revolution  is  rarely  a 
constructive  statesman.  He  closed  his  great  career  by 
setting  his  hand  to  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States, 
as  he  had  already  done  to  the  Declaration  of  Independence. 

Yet  after  his  achievements  and  services  have  all  been 
recounted  we  still  come  back  to  that  which  was  most 
remarkable,  —  the  manner  in  which  he  at  once  influenced 
and  reflected  his  time.  The  eighteenth  century  has  for 
long  been  held  up  to  scorn  as  destitute  of  enthusiasm, 
lacking  in  faith  and  ideals,  indifferent  and  utterly  worldly. 
Franklin  was  certainly  devoid  of  enthusiasm,  and  yet  one 
unbroken  'purpose  ran  strongly  through  his  life  and  was 
pursued  by  him  with  a  steadiness  and  force  which  are 
frequently  wanting  in  enthusiasts.  He  sought  unceasingly 
the  improvement  of  man's  condition  here  on  earth. 
Whether  it  was  the  invention  of  a  stove,  the  paving  of 
Philadelphia,  the  founding  of  a  library,  the  movement 
of  storms,  the  control  of  electric  currents,  or  the  defence 


98  MODERN  ESSAYS 

of  American  liberty,  lie  was  always  seeking  to  instruct 
and  help  his  fellow-men  and  to  make  their  lot  a  better 
and  happier  one.  The  morals  he  preached  were  indeed 
worldly ;  there  never  was  a  bit  of  morality  more  purely 
of  the  account-book  kind  than  the  familiar  aphorism 
about  honesty,  and  yet  it  may  be  doubted  whether  all  the 
pulpits  in  America  did  more  to  make  men  honest  and 
thrifty,  and  to  develop  good  and  sober  citizens  than  the 
uninspired  preachings  of  "Poor  Richard."  He  was  a 
sceptic,  as  were  nearly  all  the  great  men  of  the  century, 
but  his  honest  doubt  helped  to  free  the  human  mind  and 
dispel  the  darkness  which  had  stayed  the  march  of  intel- 
lect. He  never  scoffed  at  religion ;  he  did  not  hesitate  to 
appeal  to  it  at  a  great  crisis  to  sway  the  minds  of  his 
fellows,  but  he  suffered  no  dogmas  to  stand  in  the  way  of 
that  opening  of  the  mind  which  he  believed  would  advance 
the  race  and  soften  by  its  discoveries  the  hard  fate  of 
humanity.  He  was  conservative  by  nature  in  accordance 
with  the  habit  of  the  time,  but  that  which  was  new  had 
no  terrors  for  him,  and  he  entered  upon  the  path  of  revolu- 
tion with  entire  calmness  when  he  felt  that  revolution  had 
become  necessary  to  the  welfare  and  happiness  of  his 
people. 

There  was  nothing  inevitable  about  the  American  Rev- 
olution at  the  particular  time  at  which  it  came.  It 
would  have  failed  indeed  on  the  field  of  battle  had  it 
not  been  for  George  Washington.  But  when  the  British 
Government,  among  their  many  blunders,  insulted  Frank- 
lin and  rejected  his  counsel  they  cast  aside  the  one  man 
whose  wisdom  might  have  saved  the  situation,  and,  so 
far  as  they  could,  made  the  revolt  of  the  colonies  unavoid- 
able. It  was  an  indifferent,  cold-blooded  century,  and 
both  epithets  have  been  applied  to  Franklin,  no  doubt 


FRANKLIN  99 

with  some  justice.  But  it  is  never  fair  to  judge  one  cen- 
tury or  its  people  by  the  standards  of  another.  FrankUn 
was  a  man  of  extraordinary  self-control  combined  with  a 
sense  of  humor  which  never  deserted  him  and  which  is 
easily  mistaken  for  cold-blooded  indifference.  He  signed 
the  Declaration  of  Independence,  it  is  said,  with  a  jest ; 
yet  no  man  measured  its  meaning  or  felt  its  gravity  more 
than  he.  He  stood  silent  in  the  Cock-Pit  while  the  coarse 
invective  of  Wedderburne  beat  about  his  head,  and  made 
no  reply.  The  only  revenge  he  took,  the  only  answer  he 
ever  made,  if  tradition  may  be  believed,  was  to  wear  when 
he  signed  the  treaty  acknowledging  American  indepen- 
dence the  same  coat  of  Manchester  velvet  which  he  wore 
when  the  pitiless  abuse  of  England's  Attorney-General 
was  poured  out  upon  him.  He  was  not  a  man  who  dis- 
played emotion  —  it  was  not  the  fashion  of  his  time.  He 
was  a  philosopher  and  a  stoic.  Perhaps,  as  Mr.  Birrell 
says,  he  was  neither  loving  nor  tender-hearted,  yet  he 
manged  both  in  his  life  and  in  the  disposition  of  his  prop- 
erty to  do  many  kindnesses  and  much  good  to  those  to 
whom  the  battle  of  life  was  hardest.  His  sympathies 
were  keen  for  mankind  rather  than  for  the  individual, 
but  that  again  was  the  fashion  of  his  time  —  a  fashion 
which  shattered  many  oppressions  gray  with  the  age  of 
centuries  and  redressed  many  wrongs. 

Franklin  was  very  human,  far  from  perfect  in  more 
than  one  direction.  It  is  easy  enough  to  point  out  blem- 
ishes in  his  character.  But  as  a  public  man  he  sought  no 
private  ends,  and  his  great  and  versatile  intellect  was  one 
of  the  powerful  influences  which  in  the  eighteenth  century 
wrought  not  only  for  political  liberty,  but  for  freedom  of 
thought,  and  in  so  doing  rendered  services  to  humanity 
which  are  a  blessing  to  mankind  to-day.     We  accept  the 


100  MODERN  ESSAYS 

blessings  and  forget  too  often  to  wliose  labors  in  a  receding 
past  they  are  due.  We  owe  a  vast  debt  to  the  great  men 
of  the  eighteenth  century  who  brought  out  of  the  shams 
and  conventions  and  oppressions  of  that  time  the  revolu- 
tions in  politics,  in  society,  and  in  thought  the  fruits  of 
which  we  of  to-day  now  enjoy.  To  no  one  of  these  men 
is  the  world's  debt  larger  than  to  Franklin. 


THE   SERIOUS  PEPYS  i 

BY 

Wilbur  Cortez  Abbott 

Much  the  same  problem  as  that  solved  by  Senator  Lodge  confronted 
Professor  Abbott.  There  is,  however,  in  the  latter  case  a  large  amount 
of  popular  misunderstanding  first  to  be  cleared  away.  Naturally  his 
essay  falls  into  three  well-defined  divisions.  First,  he  states  briefly 
the  known  facts  of  Pepys's  life.  Secondly,  he  considers  very  fully  the 
effect  upon  Pepys's  reputation  due  to  the  discovery  of  the  famous  "  Diary." 
By  this  means,  —  and  he  has  already  used  half  the  space  of  the  total 
essay,  —  he  has  gained  the  reader's  confidence  by  showing  that  he  is 
quite  familiar  with  the  usual  interpretation  of  Pepys's  character.  Then 
follow  eloquent  paragraphs  in  which  this  conception  is  overthrown. 
Point  by  point  a  new  Pepys  is  built  up.  Little  by  little  this  new  figure 
emerges  until  from  the  ruins  of  the  reader's  previous  picture  of  the  dis- 
solute rake  rises  the  conception  of  the  great  public  servant. 

"Whoever,"  says  Montaigne,  "will  justly  consider 
and  with  due  proportion,  of  what  kind  of  men  and  of 
what  sort  of  actions  the  glory  sustains  itself  in  the  records 
of  history,  will  find  that  there  are  very  few  actions  and 
very  few  persons  of  our  times  who  can  there  pretend  any 
right."  "Of  so  many  thousands  of  valiant  men  who  have 
died  within  these  fifteen  hundred  years  in  France  with 
their  swords  in  their  hands,"  he  goes  on,  "not  a  hundred 
have  come  to  our  knowledge.  The  memory  not  of  the 
commanders  only,  but  of  battles  and  victories  is  buried 

1  From  The  Yale  Revieiv,  for  April,  1914,  by  permission  of  the 
author  and  of  the  editor  of  The  Yale  Review. 

101 


102  MODERN  ESSAYS 

and  gone ;  the  fortunes  of  above  half  the  world  for  want 
of  a  record  stir  not  from  their  place  and  vanish  without 
duration ;  ...  it  must  be  some  very  eminent  greatness 
or  some  consequence  of  great  importance  that  fortune  has 
added  to  it  that  signalizes"  an  action  to  make  it,  and  the 
actor,  remembered. 

But  there  is  no  recipe  for  immortality,  even  for  the 
greatest ;  and  if  fame's  vagaries  thus  affect  captains  and 
kings,  what  chance  have  men  in  lesser  stations ;  if  con- 
querors are  so  frequently  forgotten,  what  of  the  men  of 
peace  —  which  has  its  oblivion  far  more  profound  than 
war  !  Above  all,  perhaps,  what  hope  has  one  who  devotes 
himself  not  to  the  destruction  or  manipulation  of  his 
fellow  men  but  to  their  service,  in  particular  as  that  bul- 
wark of  organized  society,  an  honest  and  able  civil  ser- 
vant ?  Little  enough,  indeed.  The  worst  of  demagogues, 
the  most  incompetent  of  commanders,  the  harshest  of 
tyrants,  the  most  depraved  of  rakes,  has  far  better  chance 
for  an  undying,  if  an  undesirable,  fame  under  present  his- 
torical conditions  than  even  the  best  of  those  "sons  of 
Martha."  Save  when  preserved  by  other  means,  some 
share  in  politics,  some  gift  to  literature,  their  fame  is 
mingled  with  the  air.  Only  among  the  unwritten  tradi- 
tions of  their  service  and  its  unread  documents  their  repu- 
tations lie,  safe  from  the  praise  or  blame  of  those  they 
served.  Of  this  great  class,  paradoxical  as  it  may  seem, 
there  is  no  better  representative  than  the  well-known 
subject  of  this  essay. 

On  the  twenty-sixth  of  May,  1703,  while  England  girded 
herself  for  that  far-spreading  conflict  which  in  a  twelve- 
month was  to  bring  to  her  Gibraltar  and  the  great  Marl- 
borough's "famous  victory"  of  Blenheim,  there  died  at 
Clapham,  near  London,  one  Samuel  Pepys,  sometime  a 


THE  SERIOUS  PEPYS  103 

notable  figure  in  the  world  he  left.  Member  of  Parlia- 
ment, Treasurer  of  Tangier,  Surveyor  General  of  the 
Victualling  Office,  Clerk  of  the  Acts,  and  Secretary  of 
the  Admiralty,  he  had  played  no  trifling  part  in  the  event- 
ful years  of  the  last  Stuart  kings.  Aside  from  his  official 
life,  Pepys  had  been  scarcely  less  well  known  in  widely 
different  fields.  Master  of  Trinity  House  and  of  the 
Clothworkers'  Company,  Governor  of  Christ's  Hospital, 
twice  President  of  the  Royal  Society  ;  a  patron  and  critic 
of  the  arts,  music,  the  drama,  literature ;  an  indefatigable 
collector  of  manuscripts  and  books,  broadsides,  ballads, 
music-scores,  and  curios ;  he  had  been  no  less  at  home  in 
gatherings  of  scientists  and  virtuosos,  in  Covent  Garden 
and  in  Drury  Lane,  or  the  booksellers'  shops  about  old 
St.  Paul's,  than  in  the  Navy  Office  and  dockyards.  He 
had  arranged,  even  composed,  some  music,  and  he  was  no 
mean  amateur  performer  on  certainly  one  instrument ;  he 
had  contributed  to  the  Royal  Society ;  not  a  few  books 
had  been  dedicated  to  him  ;  and  he  himself  had  published 
at  least  one.  His  portrait  had  been  painted  three  times 
by  Kneller,  once  by  Lely,  and  again  by  artists  of  less  note. 
Among  his  friends  were  statesmen  and  scientists,  authors, 
officials,  musicians,  royalties :  Hans  Sloane,  Christopher 
Wren,  Isaac  Newton,  John  Evelyn,  John  Dryden,  and 
that  "admirable  Lord  High  Admiral  but  less  than  admi- 
rable king,"  James  the  Second,  now  long  an  exile  at  the 
court  of  France.  Surely,  if  a  man's  achievements  are  to 
count  for  anything,  here  was  a  candidate  for  at  least  a 
moderate  immortality. 

"  In  the  judgment  I  make  of  another  man's  life,"  says  the 
old  French  moralist-philosopher,  "I  always  observe  how 
he  carried  himself  at  his  death ;  .  .  .  this  is  the  day  that 
must  be  the  judge  of  all  the  foregoing  years."     This 


104  MODERN  ESSAYS 

supreme  test  the  Secretary  met  bravely.  "Last  night," 
wrote  the  nonjuring  clergyman,  George  Hickes,  who  was 
with  him  at  the  end,  "I  did  the  last  offices  for  Samuel 
Pepys.  .  .  .  The  greatness  of  his  behaviour  in  his  long 
and  sharp  tryall  before  his  death  was  in  every  respect 
answerable  to  his  great  life,  and  in  accordance  with  his 
motto,  Mens  cujusque  is  est  quisque,'"  —  as  a  man's  mind 
is,  so  is  he.  "This  day,"  wrote  old  John  Evelyn,  "died 
Mr.  Sam.  Pepys,  a  very  worthy,  industrious,  and  curious 
person,  none  in  England  exceeding  him  in  knowledge  of 
the  Navy,  in  which  he  had  passed  thro'  all  the  most  consid- 
erable offices  ...  all  which  he  performed  with  great  in- 
tegrity. .  .  .  He  was  universally  beloved,  hospitable, 
generous,  learned  in  many  things,  skilled  in  music,  a  very 
greate  cherisher  of  learned  men  of  whom  he  had  the 
conversation ;  .  .  .  for  neere  40  yeares  .  .  .  my  particu- 
lar friend."  Such  was  the  esteem  of  his  contemporaries 
for  one  who  had  been  called  successively  the  right  hand, 
the  Nestor,  and  the  father  of  the  English  navy ;  reckoned 
the  ablest  civil  servant  of  his  time,  a  shrewd,  strict,  serious 
man  of  business,  a  faithful  friend,  a  generous  patron,  an 
accomplished  gentleman,  and  an  honest  man.  May  none 
of  us  have  a  worse  epitaph. 

His  will  bore  out  the  character  of  his  life  and  death. 
The  wide  distribution  of  mourning  and  rings,  according 
to  the  custom  of  the  time,  witnessed  his  many  and  eminent 
friendships ;  his  numerous  bequests  to  his  acquaintances 
and  servants  further  testified  to  an  agreeable  side  of  his 
nature.  The  bestowal  of  his  fortvme  on  his  nephew ;  and 
the  devising  of  his  library  to  Magdalene  College,  Cam- 
bridge, after  that  nephew's  death ;  the  gift  of  his  ship- 
models  to  his  partner  and  friend,  William  Hewer,  with 
recommendation  "to  consider  how  these,  also  together 


THE  SERIOUS  PEPYS  105 

with  his  own,  may  be  preserved  for  pubhck  benefit,"  — 
gave  evidence  of  a  strong  family,  college,  and  public 
spirit ;  which,  again,  often  contributes  somewhat  to  post- 
humous reputation. 

This,  for  the  son  of  a  tailor,  who  owed  small  thanks  to 
birth  or  fortune,  some  to  circumstance,  most  to  himself, 
for  all  the  blessings  he  enjoyed  in  life,  and  in  such  unusual 
and  such  long  unsuspected  degree  passed  on  to  posterity, 
was  no  small  achievement  as  a  bid  for  fame.  To  his  suc- 
cess his  schooling  at  Huntingdon  and  St.  Paul's,  then  at 
Magdalene  College,  contributed  somewhat ;  but  the  de- 
termining factor  in  his  career  had  been  his  connection 
with  his  father's  cousin  and  his  own  patron,  Sir  Edward 
Montagu,  the  friend  and  relative  and  follower  of  Cromwell. 
When,  after  a  brief  excursion  in  diplomacy,  the  youthful 
Pepys  entered  the  service  of  this  capable  commander, 
whom  the  Protector  had  summoned  from  his  place  in  the 
New  Model  to  a  seat  in  the  Council  of  State  with  charge 
of  naval  operations  against  Spain,  Dunkirk,  and  the 
Northern  powers  ;  and,  in  particular,  when,  after  a  period 
of  retirement,  the  Convention  Parliament  commissioned 
Montagu  to  bring  back  the  exiled  Charles  to  England  and 
the  throne,  the  fortune  of  his  secretary,  Pepys,  was  settled 
with  his  own.  Clerk  of  the  Acts  and  of  the  Admiralty 
Board  ;  then,  by  successive  stages  of  advance,  wresting 
increasing  reputation  and  authority  from  the  catastrophes 
of  fire,  plague,  and  war,  Pepys  had  outgrown  the  need  of 
a  patron  long  before  he  became  the  Secretary  of  the 
Admiralty.  Through  twenty  busy  years,  save  for  the  in- 
terruption of  the  Popish  Plot,  the  history  of  naval  admin- 
istration more  and  more  became  the  story  of  his  life,  as  he 
refashioned  his  office  on  the  lines  it  held  for  more  than  a 
century.     Not  without  color  and  incident,  verging  more 


106  MODERN  ESSAYS 

than  once  on  tragedy  as  he  became  involved  in  the  vicissi- 
tudes of  politics,  but  in  the  main  absorbed  in  the  reform 
and  conduct  of  naval  affairs,  until  the  Revolution  drove 
him  and  his  master  James  the  Second  from  their  posts, 
his  life  was  one  in  which  increasing  purpose  ran  with  vigor 
and  success. 

Such  was  the  Pepys  of  the  seventeenth  century,  the 
greatest  Secretary  of  what  is,  in  one  view,  England's 
greatest  service ;  thus  he  lived  and  died.  Thus  was  he 
not  remembered ;  it  is,  indeed,  amazing  to  find  how  soon 
he  was  forgotten  and  how  completely.  A  dozen  years 
after  his  death,  his  name  found  place  in  "The  Continua- 
tion of  Mr.  Collier's  Supplement  to  his  Great  Dictionary"  ; 
a  dozen  more,  and  Burnet  noted  his  connection  with  the 
Popish  Plot ;  while,  thanks  chiefly  to  the  fact  that  Kneller 
painted  and  White  engraved  his  portrait,  Grainger  gave 
him  a  page  in  his  extraordinary  "Biographical  History  of 
England."  Another  fifty  years,  and  Hume  observed  that 
naval  tradition  still  recalled  Pepys's  administration  as  "a 
model  of  order  and  economy."  The  rest  was  all  but 
silence;  among  the  innumerable  "characters"  which  en- 
tertained the  readers  of  the  "Annual  Register,"  his  found 
no  place;  the  long  files  of  the  "Gentleman's  Magazine," 
save  for  a  brief  note  on  his  library,  knew  him  not ;  in  its 
three  editions  in  the  eighteenth  century  not  even  the 
"Encyclopaedia  Britannica"  recorded  his  name.  Mem- 
bers or  visitors  of  Magdalene  College  still  observed,  as  now, 
the  building  which  contained  his  books,  and  some  even 
found  their  way  inside ;  at  least  two  recorded  something 
of  the  treasures  they  discovered  there ;  and  part  of  the 
material  for  Percy's  "Reliques  of  Ancient  English  Poetry" 
was  drawn  from  that  source.  Frequenters  of  St.  Olave's 
Church  may  have  taken  notice  of  the  Secretary's  tomb; 


THE  SERIOUS  PEPYS  107 

members  of  corporations  or  societies  to  which  he  once 
belonged  might  now  and  then  recall  him  by  his  gifts ; 
lovers  of  art  noted  his  portraits  as  examples  of  the  painter's 
skill.  Family  pride,  the  industry  of  genealogist  or  anti- 
quarian, might  have  found  in  parish  registers  the  entry 
of  his  birth,  marriage,  and  death  ;  or  in  the  college  books, 
besides  the  record  of  his  entrance  and  exit,  that  he  was 
once  reproved  for  being  drunk.  An  occasional  reader  may 
have  looked  in  his  "Memoirs  of  the  Royal  Navy";  a 
scholar  or  an  archivist  here  and  there  have  noted  the 
unread  masses  of  his  memoranda  in  the  Public  Records 
Office  or  the  libraries.  This  was  the  sum  of  Pepys's  im- 
pression on  the  world  a  century  after  he  left  it  —  a  handful 
of  mementos  and  a  fast  fading  memory. 

Of  these,  only  his  papers  and  his  books  still  stood  be- 
tween him  and  oblivion.  The  books,  indeed,  had  been 
not  seldom  used ;  the  papers  were  still  all  but  unexplored. 
Sometime  during  that  eighteenth  century,  which  con- 
cerned itself  so  mightily  with  very  many  things  much  less 
worth  while,  a  now  unknown  enthusiast  began  a  catalogue 
of  the  Pepysian  collections  in  the  Magdalene  library.  He 
was  soon,  far  too  soon,  discouraged.  There  lay  "a  vast 
collection  from  our  antient  records  .  .  .  relating  to  our 
naval  affairs  and  those  of  other  countries.  Books  of 
musick,  mathematicks  and  several  other  subjects  all  excel- 
lent in  their  kind."  Among  them  were  two  hundred  and 
fifty  volumes  chiefly  of  naval  manuscripts,  gathered, 
doubtless,  as  a  basis  for  a  projected  history.  There  lay 
the  Lethington  Collection  of  Scottish  poetry ;  masses  of 
tracts  and  pamphlets ;  with  the  largest  body  of  broadside 
ballads  in  existence.  Above  all,  in  the  mind  of  at  least 
one  bibliophile,  was  what  "he  hath  collected  with  respect 
to  the  City  of  London,  for  the  illustration  of  that  famous 


108  MODERN  ESSAYS 

city,"  besides  "a  vast  collection  of  heads  both  domestic 
and  foreign,  beyond  expression,  copy-books  of  all  the 
masters  of  Europe,"  and  "a  large  book  of  title-pages, 
frontispieces  .  .  .  not  to  be  paralleled,"  the  whole  crowned 
with  an  "admirable  catalogue."  Besides  these,  fifty  vol- 
umes more  of  Pepys's  manuscripts  had  found  their  way 
into  the  hands  of  the  great  collector,  Rawlinson,  and  so  to 
the  Bodleian  Library  at  Oxford.  Besides  these,  still,  his 
documents  in  public  and  in  private  hands,  had  they  been 
even  catalogued  in  print,  would  have  reared  a  monument 
whose  very  size  might  have  compelled  attention  and  re- 
vised the  eighteenth  century's  knowledge  of  the  past  and 
of  Pepys. 

But  the  exploiting  of  this  material  was  reserved  for  later 
generations,  when  its  fulfillment  became  a  romance  of 
literature  and  scholarship  alike.  It  is  a  well-known  story 
how,  among  the  masses  of  historical  material  which  found 
their  way  to  print  in  the  first  quarter  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  the  Diary  of  John  Evelyn,  with  its  mention  of 
the  Secretary,  inspired  the  Master  of  Magdalene  College 
to  put  in  Lord  Grenville's  hands  six  volumes  of  cipher 
manuscript  from  Pepys's  collections  which  had  long  puz- 
zled curious  visitors ;  how  that  accomplished  nobleman, 
having  transcribed  some  pages,  found  them  of  such  in- 
terest that  an  undergraduate,  John  Smith,  was  entrusted 
with  the  completion  of  the  work ;  and  how  after  three 
years  of  labor  on  his  part  there  presently  appeared,  under 
Lord  Braybrooke's  editorship,  the  "Memoirs  of  Samuel 
Pepys,  Esq.  F.  R.  S.,  Secretary  to  the  Admiralty  .  .  . 
comprising  his  Diary  from  1659  to  1669  ,  .  .  with  a 
selection  from  his  private  Correspondence."  It  is,  per- 
haps, scarcely  so  well  appreciated  how,  with  that  event, 
ensued  a  revolution  in  posthumous  fame  unparalleled  in 


THE  SERIOUS  PEPYS  109 

literary  history.  From  the  obscurity  of  a  century  emerged 
no  mere  man  of  affairs  but  a  Personality.  What  a  hfe- 
time  of  great  endeavor  could  not  do,  a  book  accomplished 
almost  in  a  day.  By  the  transcriber's  magic  the  forgotten 
Secretary  of  the  Admiralty  was  transformed  into  a  Prince 
of  Diarists  and  set  among  the  immortals.  So  complete 
was  the  triumph  over  oblivion  that,  within  twenty  years, 
even  Macaulay,  who  had  drawn  largely  on  the  Secretary's 
books  for  his  History,  allowed  himself  to  write  of  "Samuel 
Pepys  whose  library  and  diary  have  kept  his  name  fresh 
to  our  time" ;  so  vivid  was  the  book  that  even  the  great 
historian  seems  to  have  felt,  like  many  since,  that  its 
author  had  always  been  well  known. 

It  is  not  surprising  that  he  was  misled,  nor  that  the  first 
transcriber  often  spent  fourteen  hours  a  day  upon  his  task, 
when  one  considers  how  amazingly  alive  the  book  is  still, 
how  every  hour  promises  a  fresh  surprise.  Read  but  the 
opening  lines  with  their  directness,  reminiscent  of  Defoe, 
and  you  feel  the  charm  impelling  you  to  go  on  : 

Blessed  be  God,  at  the  end  of  last  year  I  was  in  very  good  health.  .  .  . 
I  lived  in  Axe  Yard,  having  my  wife  and  servant  Jane  and  no  more  in 
family  than  us  three.  .  .  .  The  condition  of  the  State  was  thus,  .  .  . 
the  Rump  after  being  disturbed  by  my  Lord  Lambert  was  lately  returned 
to  sit  again.  The  officers  of  the  Army  all  forced  to  yield.  Lawson  lies 
still  in  the  river  and  Monk  with  his  army  in  Scotland.  .  .  .  The  new 
Common  Council  of  the  City  do  speak  very  high.  .  .  .  My  own  private 
condition  very  handsome  and  esteemed  rich,  but  indeed  very  poor,  besides 
my  goods  of  my  house  and  my  office.  .  .  .  This  morning  ...  I 
rose,  put  on  my  suit  with  great  skirts,  .  .  .  went  to  Mr.  Gunning's 
Chapel  at  Exeter  House.  .  .  .  Dined  at  home  .  .  .  where  my  wife 
dressed  the  remains  of  a  turkey,  .  .  .  supt  at  my  father's  where  in 
came  Mrs.  The.  Turner  and  Madam  Morrice.  ...  In  the  morning 
.  .  .  Old  East  brought  me  a  dozen  bottles  of  sack.  ...  I  went  .  .  . 
to  speak  with  Mr.  Calthropp  about  the  £60  due  my  Lord.  .  .  [and] 
heard  that  Lambert  was  coming  up  to  London. 


110  MODERN  ESSAYS 

There  you  have,  in  little,  Pepys  and  his  Diary ;  his  house, 
his  clothes,  his  wife,  his  food,  his  health,  his  office,  his 
acquaintances,  his  amusements,  his  relatives,  his  intimate 
gossip  of  affairs.  You  have,  indeed,  much  more  :  at  once 
an  incredibly  lifelike  picture  of  the  times,  and  a  true  ro- 
mance, surpassing  all  fiction,  of  the  life  and  strange,  sur- 
prising adventures  of  one  Samuel  Pepys,  who  lived,  far 
from  alone,  for  seventy  years  in  the  island  of  Great  Britain, 
and  whose  activities  are  here  set  down  with  the  detail  that 
has  charmed  generations  since  in  the  exploits  of  his 
antithesis,  Robinson  Crusoe,  with  all  the  added  zest  of 
brilliant  environment. 

There  is,  indeed,  some  curious  kinship  between  these 
two  wholly  unlike  productions.  There  is  the  same  fas- 
cination in  watching  Pepys  rescue  from  the  catastrophe 
of  the  Cromwellian  rule  the  means  to  make  his  fortune  as 
in  seeing  Crusoe  rescue  from  the  shipwreck  the  means  of 
sustaining  life ;  the  same  interest  in  observing  the  one 
build  his  career  and  the  other  build  his  house,  the  same 
suspense  over  the  crises  in  the  affairs  of  each ;  the  same 
pleasure  in  their  triumphs  over  adversity  as  they  struggle 
with  nature  or  with  the  world  of  men ;  the  same  satisfac- 
tion over  their  ultimate  victory ;  there  is  even  something 
curiously  alike  in  the  accumulation  of  minute  and  often 
apparently  trivial  detail  by  which,  in  truth  or  fancy,  both 
authors  produce  their  lifelike  effects. 

Pepys  has,  indeed,  had  full  reward  for  all  his  pains.  Since 
the  appearance  of  his  Diary  in  the  first  abbreviated  form 
which  printed  scarcely  half  of  its  contents,  much  learned 
and  loving  labor  has  been  spent  on  its  elucidation.  The 
ingenuity  and  industry  of  successive  editors  has  enlarged 
our  knowledge  and  understanding  of  the  work ;  the  two 
original  volumes,  what  with  inclusion  of  the  parts  at  first 


THE  SERIOUS  PEPYS  111 

suppressed  and  a  great  bulk  of  comment,  have  increased  to 
ten.  One  editor  has  re-transcribed  the  manuscript,  an- 
other has  compiled  a  book  on  Pepys  and  the  world  he 
lived  in ;  the  family  genealogy  has  been  unearthed  and  a 
study  made  of  one  of  its  members  as  "a  later  Pepys" ;  so 
far  has  the  reflected  glory  shone.  The  diarist's  early  life 
has  been  laid  bare ;  his  letters  published,  with  his  will ; 
his  portraits  reproduced ;  a  whole  book  on  Pepys  as  a 
lover  of  music  has  appeared ;  an  essay  on  the  sermons 
that  he  heard ;  even  the  medical  aspects  of  his  married 
life  have  been  explained  by  a  physician-author.  Essayists 
and  bookmakers  still  find  in  him  an  ever-fertile  subject 
for  their  pens ;  no  biographical  dictionary  or  encyclopaedia 
is  without  a  full  account  of  the  great  diarist ;  and,  rising 
finally  to  the  full  stature  of  a  real  biography,  few  names 
to-day  in  English  literature  are  better  known,  few  classics 
more  widely  read  or  more  enjoyed. 

If  the  effect  on  Pepys  has  been  so  great,  the  influence  of 
the  Diary  on  seventeenth-century  history  has  been  no 
less.  The  formal  even  tragic  dignity  which  for  a  hundred 
years  enveloped  that  great  revolutionary  period  was  de- 
stroyed almost  beyond  repair  of  the  dullest  historian.  "  It 
was  as  though  in  a  musty  library,  slumbrous  with  solemn 
volumes,  a  window  had  suddenly  been  opened,  and  the 
spectator  looked  out  upon  the  London  of  the  mid-seven- 
teenth century,  full  of  color  and  movement,  still  breathing 
the  Elizabethan  enchantment,  .  .  .  vehemently  returned 
to  the  lust  of  the  eye  and  the  pride  of  the  flesh  after  the 
restraints  and  severities  of  the  Puritan  dominion."  Be- 
fore the  Diary  appeared,  the  England  of  Charles  the 
Second  was  the  England  of  Clarendon,  Eachard,  Rapin, 
Hume,  a  dull,  tangled  interlude  between  two  revolutions ; 
since  his  book  it  has  been,  for  the  most  of  us,  the  England 


112  MODERN  ESSAYS 

of  Pepys,  amusing,  intimate,  incredibly  alive.  Its  obscura- 
tion has  not  yet  been  wholly  cleared  away,  the  history  of 
the  Restoration  still  remains  to  be  written  ;  but  when  it  is, 
secretary-diarist  will  have  no  less  a  share  in  writing  its 
memoirs  than  he  had  in  managing  its  affairs.  Already 
from  his  book  have  been  evolved  more  than  one  history 
of  seventeenth-century  manners,  music,  drama,  literature  ; 
even  political  historians  have  used  it  to  advantage.  It 
has  been  supplemented  by  other  works,  but  to  it  we  owe 
in  greater  measure  than  to  any  single  book  the  picture  of 
a  period  which,  even  now,  makes  Pepys's  time  nearer  to 
us  than  any  other  decade  of  English  history. 

When  one  considers  what  the  Secretary  was  and  did, 
and  how  his  reputation  stood  before  the  Diary  appeared, 
this  result  seems  all  the  more  extraordinary.  Eminent 
as  he  was  in  admiralty  circles,  as  a  patron  of  the  arts, 
collector,  and  philanthropist ;  useful  as  his  life  had  been 
and  notable  for  honorable  success  in  public  service,  it 
gave  small  promise  of  eminence  in  literature.  His  success, 
indeed,  lies  far  outside  that  realm.  However  great  the 
quaint  attraction  of  his  phrase ;  however  bright  the  light 
upon  his  time,  the  Diary  owes  its  wide  appeal  and  deepest 
charm  to  the  infusion  of  a  wholly  different  quality.  It  is 
not  merely  trite  to  say  that  its  fascination  lies  in  its  frank- 
ness ;  —  that  is  a  superficial,  obvious,  half-truth.  To  his 
Diary,  Pepys  confided  every  thought,  sensation,  motive, 
action,  and  desire,  —  good,  bad,  high,  low,  important, 
trivial,  absurd,  —  with  a  freedom  beyond  mere  frankness. 
The  result  is  unique,  not  merely  in  literature,  but  almost, 
if  not  quite,  in  life  itself.  It  seldom  happens  among 
myriads  of  human  relationships  that  anyone  knows  any 
of  his  fellows,  however  near  and  dear,  as  well  as  all  of  us 
know  Pepys ;   most  of  us  scarcely  know  ourselves  as  well ; 


THE  SERIOUS  PEPYS  113 

few  of  us,  or  none,  would  dare  admit,  even  to  ourselves, 
much  less  commit  to  paper,  in  whatever  decent  obscurity 
of  cipher,  all  that  the  diarist  records.  His  work  is  not 
mere  frankness ;  it  is  self-revelation  at  its  highest 
power  —  there  is  nothing  more  to  tell.  It  is  more  than 
mere  literature,  it  is  life  itself.  Most  of  such  so-called 
revelations  are  far  from  what  they  profess  to  be.  Some 
are  mere  prurience ;  some,  morbid  psychology ;  some, 
simple  vanity  ;  some,  conscious  or  unconscious  pose ;  the 
most,  mere  formal  record  of  an  outer  life,  or  merely  litera- 
ture. Pepys's  work  is  the  delineation  of  a  very  human 
being,  a  "natural  man,"  stripped  of  the  convenances  of 
society,  who  would  have  been  at  once  the  terror  and  the 
pride  of  eighteenth-century  prophets  who  invoked  such 
phantoms  constantly  and  as  constantly  produced  imagina- 
tive figments  in  their  place.  To  such  vainer  sophistica- 
tions Pepys's  Diary  bears  the  same  relation  as  that  of 
frank,  unashamed,  and  proper  savage  nakedness  to  the 
salacious  half-revelations  of  a  decadent  stage.  One  has 
but  to  compare  it  with  such  outpourings  from  those  of 
Rousseau  to  those  of  Marie  Bashkirtseff  to  realize  the 
great  gulf  fixed  between  healthy  appreciation  of  a  man's 
triumph  over  circumstances  and  the  futile  conflict  with 
shadows. 

Being  Pepys,  nothing  human,  —  and  very  few  other 
things  which  came  under  his  observation,  —  were  alien 
either  to  him  or  to  his  pen.  First,  his  appearance ;  one 
reads  to-day  with  wonder  not  unmixed  with  awe  of  "a 
velvet  cloak,  two  new  cloth  suits,  ...  a  new  shagg  gowne 
trimmed  with  gold  buttons  and  twist,  with  a  new  hat  and 
silk  tops  for  my  legs,"  —  all,  as  it  were,  in  one  mouthful. 
It  is  no  wonder  that  his  clothes  cost  some  five  times  those 
of  his  wife,  but  it  leads  to  serious  refiection  in  these  days. 


114  MODERN  ESSAYS 

Yet  it  was  no  less  policy  than  vanity  which  prompted  this 
display.  "I  hope  I  shall,  with  more  comfort,"  he  says, 
"labor  to  get  more  and  with  better  successe  than  when 
for  want  of  clothes  I  was  forced  to  sneake  like  a  beggar." 
That  he  got  more  his  accounts  reveal.  When  he  went 
with  Montagu  to  bring  back  the  King,  he  had  scarcely  a 
penny  to  his  name.  He  came  back  with  near  a  hundred 
pounds.  After  seven  years  of  office  he  reckoned  himself 
worth  some  seven  thousand  pounds ;  prepared  to  set  up  a 
coach ;  gave  his  sister,  Paulina,  six  hundred  pounds  as  a 
marriage  portion ;  and  lent  his  cousin,  Roger,  five  hun- 
dred ;  —  for  all  of  which  he  blessed  God  fervently  in  his 
Diary.  When  he  died,  the  Crown  owed  him  twenty-eight 
thousand  pounds  ;  yet  he  left  a  comfortable  fortune.  And 
he  was  neither  dishonest  nor  niggardly.  During  at  least 
the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries,  few  fields  of 
human  endeavor  yielded  such  rich  returns  as  public  office ; 
and  if  Pepys  took  his  fees,  like  other  men,  unlike  too  many 
of  them,  he  gave  good  service  in  return.  Nor  was  he 
ungenerous  in  spending  money.  Books,  pictures,  music, 
objects  of  art,  furniture,  plate,  hangings,  he  purchased 
with  almost  lavish  hand.  Preeminently  a  Londoner,  he 
was  insensible  to  those  charms  of  country-seat  and  garden 
which  so  engrossed  his  friend  John  Evelyn ;  a  man  of 
weighty  affairs,  gambling  of  all  kinds  appealed  to  him  even 
less ;  cautious  and  thrifty  as  became  his  class,  no  charge  of 
penuriousness  will  hold  against  him,  in  the  large. 

His  tastes,  indeed,  save  two,  were  such  as  helped  the 
world  along.  Devoted  to  the  theatre  and  a  good-fellow- 
ship which  led  him  sometimes  to  excess,  he  made  his 
frequent  "vowes  against  wine  and  plays"  only  to  break 
them,  as  men  have  done  since.  The  wine  at  least  made 
no  inroads  upon  his  business ;    the  plays  make  his  Diary 


THE   SERIOUS  PEPYS  115 

the  best  of  all  guides  to  seventeenth-century  London 
theatres.  But  at  the  theatre,  still  more  in  church,  at 
home,  abroad,  one  of  his  chief  interests  was  what  the 
eighteenth  century  knew  as  "female  charms."  One  of 
his  crosses  was  the  lack  of  such  loveliness  in  his  own  church, 
St.  Olave's ;  "not  one  handsome  face  in  all  of  them,  as  if, 
indeed,  there  was  a  curse,  as  Bishop  Fuller  heretofore  said, 
upon  our  parish."  What  he  lacked  there  he  made  up  fully 
elsewhere.  He  kissed  Nell  Gwyn,  besides  uncounted 
others,  including  the  face  of  the  exhumed  body  of  Catherine 
of  Valois,  who  had  been  dead  more  than  two  centuries, 
that  he  might  be  said  to  have  kissed  a  queen  !  His  friend- 
ship with  the  actresses,  especially  Mrs.  Knipp ;  the  trials 
which  arose  when  she  winked  at  him  and  he  had  trouble  to 
make  his  eyes  behave  as  they  should  in  his  wife's  pres- 
ence, —  are  not  such  things  and  many  more  of  like  sort  writ 
large  throughout  the  Diary.''  These  and  the  less  credit- 
able story  of  his  relations  with  his  wife's  servant.  Deb, 
witness  something  to  those  qualities  which  led  the  penni- 
less youth,  but  two  years  out  of  college,  to  espouse  the 
pretty  daughter  of  a  poverty-stricken  Huguenot  refugee 
addicted  to  invention  and  living  chiefly  upon  charity. 

All  this  and  even  more,  in  infinite  variety  of  phrase,  men 
have  laid  stress  on  since  his  book  appeared.  Largely,  and 
no  doubt  naturally,  this  side  of  Pepys's  nature  and  his 
Diary  chiefly  appealed  to  a  world  concerned  for  the  most 
part  with  the  trivial,  or  worse ;  and  it  might  be  supposed 
that  frankness  such  as  his  would  win  for  him  a  place  in 
the  esteem  of  those  who  read  his  book,  comparable  to  that 
he  occupied  in  his  contemporaries'  minds.  In  some  de- 
gree, especially  at  first,  thanks  to  the  bowdlerizing  of  his 
too  cautious  editor,  this  was  the  case.  That  incomparable 
antiquarian,  Walter  Scott,  hastened  to  welcome  this  "man 


116  MODERN   ESSAYS 

of  business,  ...  of  information  if  not  learning,  taste  and 
whim  as  well  as  pleasure,  statesman,  virtuoso,  bel  esprit," 
to  the  world  of  literature,  and  many  followed  in  the  novel- 
ist's train.  Yet,  gradually,  as  each  succeeding  issue  of 
the  Diary  included  more  and  more  of  intimate,  less  de- 
corous detail,  omitted  by  the  early  editors,  Pepys's  reputa- 
tion sank.  Like  Lucilius,  "having  dared  portray  himself 
as  he  found  himself  to  be,"  he  proved  that  "no  man  writes 
of  himself  save  to  his  hurt."  Generations  smiled,  frowned, 
shrugged,  moralized,  felt  superior.  Critics,  who  fre- 
quently knew  nothing  of  him  save  his  own  revelations 
and  the  comments  of  his  editors,  often  sneered.  Coleridge 
observed  he  was  "a  pollard  man,"  without  a  top,  ^  to 
which  Pepys  might  well  have  replied  that  the  critic  was 
all  top.  Lowell,  with  condescension  almost  worthy  of  a 
foreigner,  wrote  of  "the  unconscious  blabbings  of  the  Puri- 
tan tailor's  son."  Another,  admitting  his  honesty  and 
even  a  certain  cleverness,  laughed  at  his  "cockney  revels," 
and  his  pleasure  when  Lord  Clarendon  patted  his  head ; 
others  still,  noted  only  "the  strength  and  coarseness  of 
the  common  mind,"  the  "  decomposed  Puritan  mind,"  of 
this  "typical  bourgeois,  kindred  to  Kneller  in  vulgarity." 
A  no  less  tolerant  soul  than  Stevenson,  following,  as  often, 
earlier  lead,  adduces  Pepys's  very  appearance  against  him  ; 
says  his  face  shows  "no  aspiration,"  only  "an  animal  joy 
in  all  that  comes,"  though  he  admits  that  "  in  a  corrupt 
and  idle  period  he  played  the  man,  toiled  hard,  and  kept 
his  honor  bright."  His  severest  critic  elaborates  at  length 
the  manifold  inconsistencies  of  his  character,  forgetting 
the  dictum  expressed  by  Lord  Rosebery  that  "if  we  accept 
the  common  and  erroneous  opinion  that  human  nature  is 
consistent  with  itself  we  find  it  utterly  impossible  to  ex- 
plain the  character  of  George  the  Third  "  —  to  say  nothing 
of  that  of  other  men. 


THE   SERIOUS  PEPYS  117 

Such,  in  general,  was  the  judgment  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  hard  to  persuade  to  take  the  diarist  seriously. 
Secure  in  its  superior  virtue  and  manners ;  relieved  from 
the  gay  plumage  of  the  seventeenth-century  male ;  re- 
pressing the  earlier  liberties  of  English  speech ;  and  at 
least  the  open  license  of  its  morals ;  the  Victorian  age 
read,  loved,  despised,  what  seemed  to  it  a  garrulous, 
amusing  man.  It  scorned  the  confession  of  his  little  weak- 
nesses perhaps  even  more  than  the  weaknesses  them- 
selves —  his  love  of  company,  theatre,  dress,  diversion, 
deference ;  looked  down  upon  his  simple  vanity ;  above 
all  resented  what  he  told  of  his  dealings  with  women. 
Some  even  wrote  of  him  in  terms  appropriate  to  Sedley 
or  Rochester  —  the  comparison  is  Pepys's  best  defense  — 
forgetting  to  read  the  Diary  and  Gramont's  "Memoirs," 
or  the  Restoration  drama,  side  by  side.  Viewed  thus,  one 
may  well  wonder  whether,  after  all,  the  Secretary  would 
not  have  preferred  by  far  the  honorable  obscurity  of  a 
dead  lion  which  he  enjoyed  during  the  eighteenth  century 
to  this  contemptuously  affectionate  regard  for  a  living  ass, 
which  the  nineteenth  century  has  bestowed  on  him. 

The  difficulty  of  comprehending  Pepys  has  arisen  from 
two  circumstances :  the  fact  that  the  critics  have  known 
little  or  nothing  of  him  beyond  what  they  found  in  his 
own  pages  or  the  comment  of  his  editors ;  and  the  fact 
that,  most  unfortunately  for  himself  and  for  us,  Pepys 
ceased  to  be  a  diarist  before  he  became  a  secretary.  From 
the  eighteenth-century  historians,  even  had  the  men  of 
literature  read  their  books,  —  which  there  is  no  reason  to 
believe  they  did,  —  little  could  have  been  gleaned,  and 
the  earlier  editors,  at  least,  were  not  much  better.  In 
what  spirit  they  began  let  Lord  Braybrooke's  own  words  de- 
clare.    As  Pepys  "was  in  the  habit  of  recording  the  most 


118  MODERN  ESSAYS 

trifling  occurrences,"  he  wrote,  "it  became  absolutely 
necessary  to  curtail  the  manuscript  materially,'" —  and  so 
he  omitted  an  entertaining  half.  Bright,  daring  greatly, 
printed  some  four-fifths ;  Wheatley,  all  but  about  thirty 
pages.  It  was,  then,  nearly  seventy  years  before  the  world 
saw  anywhere  near  the  whole  Diary.  Even  so,  had  the 
critics  paid  more  attention  to  the  serious  element  and  dwelt 
less  on  those  frivolities  —  and  worse  —  for  whose  insertion 
they  condemned  —  and  read  —  the  diarist,  they  might 
have  approximated  the  truth  more  nearly. 

But,  as  the  old  philosopher  has  said,  "The  pencil  of  the 
Holy  Ghost  hath  labored  more  in  describing  the  afflictions 
of  Job  than  the  felicities  of  Solomon,"  and  we  ought,  per- 
haps, to  expect  no  more  of  the  men  of  letters.  Yet  when 
even  the  latest,  and  in  some  ways  the  best-informed  of 
them  falls  in  error  what  can  we  expect  ?  He  denounces 
Lowell's  description  of  Pepys  as  a  Philistine;  he  reviles 
the  historians  of  English  literature  for  the  "amazing 
fallacy"  that  Pepys  lacked  enthusiasm;  he  blames  those 
who  have  made  literary  capital  out  of  the  diarist  for  the 
small  pains  they  have  taken  to  correct  their  "childish 
impressions"  by  the  results  of  recent  studies.  And,  with 
all  this,  he  permits  himself  to  say  that  "the  diary  was  the 
one  long  deliberate  effort  of  Pepys's  life"  !  So  hard  it  is 
for  men  to  realize  the  fundamental  fact  that  Samuel  Pepys 
was  not  a  diarist  who  happened  to  be  connected  with  the 
Navy  Office,  but  was  the  greatest  of  all  Secretaries  of  the 
Admiralty  who  happened,  in  his  earlier  years,  to  write  a 
diary. 

Fortunately  the  Diary  has  not  been  the  end  of  the  Secre- 
tary's striving  against  oblivion ;  what  literature  and  the 
literary  historians  have  failed  so  signally  to  do  for  him  thus 
far,   historical   scholarship   seems   likely   to   accomplish. 


THE  SERIOUS  PEPYS  119 

When,  nearly  forty  years  ago,  the  English  government 
began  to  print  calendars  of  the  state  papers  of  the  Restora- 
tion period,  it  soon  became  apparent  that  the  famous  dia- 
rist had  played  a  greater  part  in  public  affairs  than  had 
previously  been  recognized.  The  development  of  naval 
history,  in  particular,  has  gradually  re-created  the  Secre- 
tary, and  the  service  to  which  he  gave  his  life  seems  likely 
to  be  the  final  means  of  securing  for  him  an  appropriate 
immortality.  His  "Memoirs  of  the  Royal  Navy"  has 
been  reprinted ;  the  naval  historians  have  chronicled  his 
achievements ;  studies  have  been  made  of  his  activities  in 
many  public  posts  ;  and,  within  a  decade,  the  Navy  Rec- 
ords Society  has  begun  the  publication  of  a  catalogue  of 
his  papers  preserved  in  Magdalene  College  which  has 
already  reached  the  proportions  of  three  stout  volumes. 
Hereafter  we  shall  have  even  more  of  such  material,  since 
we  are  promised  the  "Navalia"  memoranda,  further  mem- 
oirs and  calendars,  filling  out  the  record  of  his  manifold 
activities.  In  view  of  all  this  publication,  it  is  not  too 
much  to  say  that,  had  Pepys's  Diary  never  seen  the  light, 
we  should  in  time  have  had  adequate  knowledge  of  the 
Secretary's  work,  however  little  we  should  have  known  of 
the  man. 

The  result  of  all  this  is  that  we  have  another  and  a  better 
Pepys  than  the  amusing  figure  which  did  duty  for  him 
throughout  the  greater  part  of  the  nineteenth  century. 
Though  even  to-day  few  readers  of  the  Diary  will  be  likely 
to  delve  into  this  mass  of  calendars,  inaccessible  to  a 
previous  generation,  and  any  alteration  in  opinion  will, 
therefore,  probably  be  slow,  it  is  high  time  to  begin  to 
realize  what  the  true  Pepys  was  like,  to  do  him  the  justice 
which  he  has,  in  a  sense,  denied  himself. 

For  we  are  too  apt  to  forget  that  to  his  own  generation 


1^0  MODERN  ESSAYS 

there  was  no  such  person  as  the  diarist.  Amid  the  silks 
and  paduasoy  of  the  Diary,  its  days  of  cheer  and  its  nights 
at  the  play,  its  family  secrets  and  its  personal  details,  men 
have  lost  sight  of  the  more  serious  side  of  him  who  found 
comfort  in  pouring  out  those  things  which  he  concealed 
from  all  the  world  beside  into  the  safe  cipher  of  his  only 
confidant.  As  we  go  through  the  mass  of  correspondence  ; 
as  we  read  the  endless  list  of  orders  and  memoranda, 
catalogues  of  ships,  reports,  recommendations,  statements 
of  accounts,  and  observe  the  operation  and  results  of  his 
administration,  we  perceive  the  petty,  childish,  simple 
figure,  evoked  by  literary  critics  from  the  Diary,  trans- 
formed into  the  truer  character  of  the  historian  —  a  man 
shrewd,  cautious,  able,  conscientious,  honest,  brave, 
wholly  devoted  to  his  service  and  his  government. 

The  story  of  naval  administration  and  reform  between 
the  revolutions  whence  emerged  the  modern  system  of 
the  admiralty  is,  indeed,  no  glittering  chronicle.  The 
"building  of  our  ships  more  burdensome";  construction 
by  the  state  rather  than  contractors  ;  reform  in  victualling 
and  sailors'  pay ;  the  manning  and  the  officering  of  the 
fleet  and  the  re-rating  of  its  vessels ;  the  reorganization  of 
the  ordnance ;  long  experiment  in  sailing  and  in  fighting 
qualities ;  elaborate  calculations  of  speed,  strength,  and 
sea- worthiness ;  investigations  in  the  source  and  quality 
of  all  supplies  ;  accounting,  storage ;  —  this  infinite  variety 
of  detail,  much  now  of  but  an  antiquarian  interest  even 
to  the  most  technical  of  experts,  is  not  easy  reading  and 
provides  little  enough  material  for  epigram.  But  it  does 
give  us  what  is  far  more  to  the  purpose,  and  that  is  a  correct 
view  of  Samuel  Pepys. 

Here  is  the  civil  servant  at  his  best.  "  J^quiponderous," 
to  his  colleagues,  "in  moral,  and  much  superior  in  philo- 


THE  SERIOUS  PEPYS  121 

sopliical  knowledge  of  the  oeconomy  of  the  navy,"  as  he 
appeared  to  the  men  of  his  own  day,  his  latest  critics 
declare  that  the  principles  of  his  naval  statesmanship  may 
even  now  be  lessons  to  a  "sea  economy  as  valid  as  they 
were  two  centuries  ago."  It  is,  indeed,  almost  incredible 
how  acute  and  diligent  he  was.  The  single  holiday  of  a 
busy  life  he  spent  in  looking  over  Dutch  and  French  naval 
establishments.  Upon  his  first  and  only  visit  to  Tangier, 
he  found  out  in  an  hour's  walk  about  the  town  what 
twenty  years  of  costly  statesmanship  and  military  occu- 
pation had  scarcely  learned,  —  that  it  was  no  fit  place  for 
English  occupation.  It  would  be  too  long  even  to  enumer- 
ate here  all  the  changes  which  he  made  in  admiralty  ad- 
ministration ;  it  is  perhaps  enough  to  say  that  a  century 
and  a  quarter  after  he  left  office,  in  the  midst  of  England's 
struggle  with  Napoleon,  a  naval  commission  found  in 
his  system  scarcely  a  thing  to  change  or  blame.  Nor  was 
he,  through  all  of  this,  a  man  of  "sweet,  uncritical  mind," 
much  less  the  time-server  he  has  often  been  pictured. 
Under  the  transparent  guise  of  a  report  to  his  chief,  the 
Duke  of  York,  which  set  the  wheels  of  reform  in  motion, 
he  criticised  with  frank  courage  Comptroller,  Treasurer, 
Surveyor,  Navy  Board,  colleagues,  courtiers,  contractors, 
every  powerful  interest  of  his  service,  whose  alienation 
might  well  have  meant  ruin  to  him.  He  was,  in  Marvel's 
phrase,  one  of  that  "handful  of  salt,  a  sparkle  of  soul  that 
.  .  .  preserved  this  gross  body  from  putrification,  .  ,  .  con- 
stant, invariable,  indeed.  Englishmen."  It  is  with  high 
appropriateness  that,  in  the  two-hundredth  year  after  his 
death,  the  editor  of  the  "Catalogue  of  Pepysian  Manu- 
scripts" dedicates  his  work  "To  the  memory  of  Samuel 
Pepys,  a  great  public  servant."  After  so  long  an  interval, 
and  through  such  great  vicissitudes,  the  Secretary  of  the 


122  MODERN  ESSAYS 

seventeenth  century  takes  on  his  proper  guise  in  the  be- 
ginning of  the  twentieth,  and  appears  again  in  something 
hke  the  form  he  doubtless  would  have  chosen  for  himself. 
We  must  then,  in  this  view,  re-read  the  Diary  and  revise 
our  estimate  of  Pepys.  As  long  presented,  he  has  unques- 
tionably antagonized  many  persons  of  highly  moral  minds 
or  highly  cultivated  taste ;  —  and  even  more  of  those  in- 
clined merely  to  prudishness.  The  spectacle  of  a  man 
who  dared  to  set  down  the  acts  and  thoughts  common 
to  many  men,  is  so  unusual  in  human  affairs,  so  contrary 
to  all  those  instincts  of  pride  and  shame  which  drive  us 
to  conceal  or  to  condone  our  weaknesses  not  only  from 
our  fellows  but  from  ourselves,  that  it  has  done  Pepys's 
reputation  great  damage.  One  who  so  far  out-Boswelled 
Boswell  as  to  paint  not  his  friend's  portrait  but  his  own, 
has  suffered  accordingly.  That  he  was  garrulous  the  very 
Diary,  on  which  the  accusation  rests,  disproves.  The 
confidence  reposed  in  him  by  men  of  every  rank ;  his  rapid 
rise  to  high  responsibilities ;  his  reputation  as  a  safe  man 
of  affairs ;  the  fact  that  only  once,  and  then  by  accident, 
did  he  reveal  the  secret  of  his  book,  —  bear  out  his  charac- 
ter as  one  not  given  to  betrayal  of  his  trust.  That,  with 
all  his  dallyings  and  philanderings,  he  was  as  licentious 
as  most  men  of  his  own  day,  no  one  familiar  with  the 
period  will  assert.  That  Pepys  was  dishonest  no  one 
believes,  or  if  he  does,  let  him  read  the  editor's  informing 
paragraph  prefacing  his  papers  which  declares  :  "There  is 
no  trace  of  anything  of  the  kind  in  the  official  corre- 
spondence," and  "even  official  letters,  when  they  are 
numbered  by  thousands  may  be  witnesses  to  character, 
for  by  an  infinite  number  of  delicate  strokes  they  at  length 
produce  a  portrait  of  the  writer."  Tested  by  this  there  is 
"no  evidence  of  corruption." 


THE  SERIOUS  PEPYS  123 

In  Pepys's  case  it  certainly  has  not  been  true  that 
actions  speak  louder  than  words.  Bacon's  saying  more 
nearly  hits  the  mark,  that  "Fame  is  like  a  river  which 
bears  up  things  light  and  swollen,  but  drowns  things 
heavy  and  solid."  Of  all  the  charges  brought  against  the 
Secretary,  one  of  the  worst  is  that  he  was  not  brave. 
Let  the  great  crises  of  his  life  attest.  A  young  man,  new 
in  office  and  affairs,  dependent  on  the  favor  of  Montagu, 
he  yet  ventured  to  remonstrate  with  his  powerful  patron 
for  improprieties  unworthy  of  his  station  and  himself, 
in  a  reproof  which  is  a  model  of  its  kind.  "I  judge  it," 
he  writes,  "very  unbecoming  the  duty  which  every  bit  of 
bread  I  eat  tells  me  I  owe  your  Lordship  to  expose  your 
honor  to  the  uncertainty  of  my  return  .  .  .  but,  sir, 
your  Lordship's  honor  being  such  as  I  ought  to  value  it 
to  be,  and  finding  both  in  city  and  court  that  discourses 
pass  to  your  prejudice,  ...  I  shall,  my  Lord,  without 
the  least  greatening  or  lessening  the  matter,  do  my  duty 
in  laying  it  shortly  before  you."  When  the  Plague  fell 
on  London  and  all  who  could  had  fled  —  Court  and 
Society,  as  usual,  the  first,  —  among  the  few  bold  spirits 
who  remained  to  carry  on  the  business  of  the  state  -^  the 
brave,  bigoted  Bishop  of  London,  Sheldon;  the  "best 
justice  of  the  peace  in  England,"  Godfrey ;  the  grim  Duke 
of  Albemarle,  old  General  Monk,  —  amid  this  courageous 
company  of  picked  men,  the  Clerk  of  the  Acts  stuck  to  his 
post  in  daily  peril  of  his  life.  Read  his  letter  to  Coventry 
if  you  would  have  a  measure  of  the  man.  "The  sickness 
in  general  thickens  round  us,"  thus  he  writes,  "particu- 
larly upon  our  neighborhood.  You,  sir,  took  your  turn 
of  the  sword  ;  I  must  not,  therefore,  grudge  to  take  mine 
of  the  pestilence."  When,  following  the  Plague,  the 
Great  Fire  of  London  threatened  to  consume  the  entire 


124  MODERN  ESSAYS 

city,  he  hastened  to  have  workmen  brought  from  the  dock- 
yards, to  suggest  destroying  houses  in  the  path  of  the 
conflagration,  and  planned,  worked,  commanded,  till 
the  Navy  Offices  were  saved.  When  the  Dutch  fleet 
sailed  up  the  Medway  and  the  Thames,  burning  and  sink- 
ing helpless,  laid-up  English  men-of-war,  and  threatening 
the  capital  itself;  while  Monk  rallied  forces  to  resist, 
threw  up  entrenchments,  mounted  guns,  and  sank  vessels 
to  oppose  further  advance ;  —  Pepys  labored  no  less 
manfully  to  meet  the  clamorous  demands  for  adequate 
supplies  by  day  and  night,  "alone  at  the  office  .  .  .  yet 
doing  the  king  good  service."  When  a  hostile  House, 
hungry  for  vengeance,  seeking  a  scapegoat  for  a  mis- 
managed war,  fell  on  the  Navy;  when  "the  whole  world 
was  at  work  blaming  one  another,"  and  even  the  Duke 
advised  his  friends  to  save  themselves,  Pepys,  unused  to 
public  speech,  alone  before  the  Commons,  defended  his 
service,  his  colleagues,  and  himself  with  such  conspicuous 
ability  and  success  "as  gave  great  satisfaction  to  every 
one."  Amid  the  revelations  of  corruption  and  malad- 
ministration which  followed  the  war,  he  dared  to  beard 
even  Prince  Rupert  before  the  Navy  Board  —  and  to 
prove  his  point.  Ten  years  thereafter  he  was  accused,  by 
no  less  dangerous  an  enemy  than  Shaftesbury,  of  being  a 
Catholic  and  possibly  involved  in  Popish  plots.  He  lost 
his  office  and  his  liberty,  he  stood  to  lose  his  life ;  but  he 
did  not  lose  his  courage  or  resource,  and,  in  the  Tower, 
prepared  defense  so  ample  as  to  make  the  absurd  charge 
fall  of  its  own  weight. 

Through  all  he  was,  he  tells  us,  horribly  afraid  —  but 
he  was  never  too  frightened  to  do  his  duty ;  incredible  as 
it  seems  in  view  of  the  conception  of  the  man  with  which 
we  have  been  instilled,   his  conscience  was  continually 


THE  SERIOUS  PEPYS  125 

too  much  for  him.  Over  and  over  again  he  resolves  to 
follow  the  dictates  of  prudence  and  not  involve  himself 
in  Montagu's  affairs  —  but  finally  he  does.  "  I  was 
fearful  of  going  to  any  house,"  he  writes  in  the  Plague 
year  —  but  he  went.  "I  do  see  everybody  is  on  his  own 
defense  and  spare  not  to  blame  another,  and  the  same 
course  I  shall  take"  —  but  he  did  not.  "I  was  afraid," 
he  writes  at  another  crisis  in  affairs,  "but  I  did  not  shew 
it."  Amid  the  difficulties  which  confronted  him  in  the 
naval  investigation  he  even  found  time  to  advise  a  per- 
secuted colleague,  "poor  weak  brother,"  in  his  defense. 
Proud  as  he  was  of  his  success  in  life,  his  house,  his  clothes, 
his  coach,  his  dignities,  his  place,  —  not  all  his  vanity 
nor  all  his  fears  prevented  his  risking  them  for  what  he 
thought  was  right.  If  this  be  cowardice,  then  make  the 
most  of  it. 

If,  finally,  you  would  have  a  fairer  measure  of  the  man, 
compare  Pepys  with  Gibbon,  the  historian,  who  most 
nearly  occupies  an  eminence  in  one  department  of  histori- 
cal literature  commensurate  with  that  of  the  Secretary 
in  another.  Not  merely  does  each  owe  his  present  repu- 
tation to  his  literary  skill  in  that  field,  but  the  outlines  of 
their  lives  show  certain  similarities.  Both  were  of  middle 
class ;  both  rose  through  their  abilities  from  relative  ob- 
scurity to  distinction ;  both  were  members  of  Parliament ; 
both  held  public  office ;  and  the  private  life  of  the  historian 
has  been  approved  by  sober  folk  almost  as  much  as  that  of 
the  diarist  has  been  condemned.  Gibbon,  accustomed  to 
inherited  means,  refrained  from  marriage  with  one  of  the 
most  attractive  women  on  the  Continent  from  prudent 
fear  of  his  father's  displeasure,  "sighed  as  a  lover  but 
obeyed  as  a  son";  the  penniless  Pepys,  with  a  rash  un- 
worldliness  the  more  remarkable  in  a  man  conspicuous 


126  MODERN  ESSAYS 

above  his  fellows  for  his  sound  judgment,  married  in 
defiance  of  every  prudent  consideration.  The  one, 
financially  independent  of  his  place,  gave  silent  votes 
against  his  conscience  for  a  poHcy  which  led  to  England's 
quarrel  with  America ;  the  other,  owing  his  living  to  his 
place,  dared  oppose  the  Commons'  anger  and  his  superiors' 
ill  will  wherever  he  believed  his  cause  was  right.  One 
slumbered  with  his  colleagues  of  the  Board  of  Trade  over 
the  duties  of  a  pleasant  sinecure,  while  the  imperial  policy 
went  down  to  ruin ;  the  other  spent  his  days  and,  not  in- 
frequently, his  nights  in  furthering  the  interests  of  his 
government.  "I  have  entered  Parliament,"  wrote  the 
historian,  "without  patriotism  and  without  ambition; 
...  all  my  views  are  bounded  by  the  comfortable  and 
modest  position  of  a  Lord  of  Trade."  "  My  great  design," 
wrote  Pepys,  "is  to  get  myself  to  be  a  Parliament  man  .  .  . 
both  for  the  King's  and  Service's  sake  and  for  the  Duke 
of  York's."     Reverse  Gibbon,  and  you  get  Pepys. 

Neither  could  have  succeeded  in  the  other's  field : 
Pepys  failed  as  much  at  history  as  Gibbon  in  affairs. 
From  the  desert  of  family  and  official  life  which  the  his- 
torian created  and  called  peace,  there  rose,  indeed,  a 
splendid  history :  from  the  varied  and  fertile  plain  of 
everyday  affairs  the  Secretary  brought  a  no  less  immortal 
Diary.  Like  character,  like  book ;  the  style  was  in  each 
case  the  man  himself.  "The  manner  of  the  'Decline  and 
Fall,'"  says  Bagehot,  "is  not  a  style  in  which  you  can  tell 
the  truth.  .  .  .  Truth  is  of  various  kinds ;  grave, 
solemn,  dignified,  —  petty,  low,  ordinary  :  and  a  historian 
who  has  to  tell  the  truth  must  be  able  to  tell  what  is  little 
as  well  as  what  is  amazing.  Gibbon  is  at  fault  here : 
he  cannot  mention  Asia  Minor.  The  petty  order  of  sub- 
lunary matters,  the  common  existence  of  ordinary  people. 


THE   SERIOUS  PEPYS  127 

the  necessary  littlenesses  of  necessary  life  are  little  suited 
to  his  sublime  narrative."  One  may  not  venture  to  declare 
what  the  ideal  style  of  diaries  should  be  ;  but,  by  whatever 
chance,  all  men  agree  that  Pepys  has  hit  upon  it ;  and, 
whatever  charges  may  be  brought  against  him,  none 
can  say  he  was  not  competent  to  tell  the  truth  in  whatever 
form  it  showed  itself  to  him,  that  he  failed  to  find  an  apt 
expression  for  every  emotion  or  experience  he  had,  or  that 
his  book  does  not  conform  to  the  "necessary  littlenesses 
of  necessary  life."  One  cannot  imagine  writing  of  Pepys 
that  "the  way  to  reverence  him  is  not  to  read  him  at  all, 
but  look  at  him  from  the  outside  .  .  .  and  think  how  much 
there  is  within."  Rather  his  book  is  "actually  read,  a 
man  is  glad  to  take  it  up  and  slow  to  lay  it  down ;  .  .  . 
once  having  had  it  in  his  library  he  would  miss  it  from  its 
shelves,"  the  more  so  that  it  was  not  the  product  of  "a 
life-time  of  horrid  industry."  Least  of  all  did  the  diarist, 
with  the  peculiar  vanity  of  the  historian,  identify  himself 
with  the  world's  greatness.  Gibbon,  it  has  been  said, 
confused  himself  with  the  Roman  Empire ;  describing  his 
pilgrimages  from  Buriton  to  London  and  London  to  Buri- 
ton  in  the  same  majestic  periods  that  record  the  fall  of 
states  and  empires ;  his  amateur  experiences  with  the 
English  yeomanry  in  phrases  that  recall  the  tramp  of 
Roman  legions ;  his  voiceless  and  insignificant  presence 
in  the  House  of  Commons  in  a  manner  suited  to  an  account 
of  the  deliberations  of  the  Roman  senators.  Whatever 
form  the  diarist's  egotism  took,  he  realized  his  place  within 
the  universe.  Nor  can  we  well  believe  that  the  great 
work  of  the  historian  would  have  suffered  from  some 
infusion  of  the  Secretary's  qualities. 

Comparisons,   however  invidious,   are  in  this  case   at 
least  illuminating ;    for  to  many  minds  the  smug,  impec- 


128  MODERN   ESSAYS 

cable  career  of  the  historian  has  seemed  far  to  surpass 
the  garrulous,  inconsequent,  vain  pursuits  of  the  gossipy 
diarist  in  all  those  enviable  qualities  which  make  for 
virtue  and  true  success ;  in  particular  it  has  seemed  to 
stand  for  the  accomplishment  of  a  great  purpose  nobly 
planned,  idealistic,  admirable,  as  opposed  to  Pepys's 
selfish  strivings  after  the  pleasures  and  profits  of  a  worldly 
existence.  Nothing  could  be  much  farther  from  the 
truth.  If  the  one  made  a  success  of  intellect,  the  other 
made  a  success  of  life ;  if  the  historian  did  much  for  the 
past  and  the  future,  the  Secretary  did  no  less  for  his  own 
day  and  for  posterity.  We  would  not  willingly  give  up 
the  work  of  either;  but,  if  one  should  fail,  we  could 
more  easily  replace  the  work  of  Gibbon  than  the  work 
of  Pepys ;  if  we  should  have  to  choose  between  selfish 
ascetic  and  hard-working  hedonist  —  let  each  man  make 
his  choice. 

That  one  shall  ask  more  of  life  than  life  can  give,  that  is 
the  great  tragedy.  From  it,  save  in  perhaps  a  single 
particular,  Pepys  was  spared.  But  that  a  man  may 
reasonably  expect  of  posterity  an  honorable  remembrance 
for  eminent  service  well  performed,  and  receive  instead 
a  familiar,  half-contemptuous  regard  as  a  light-minded, 
evil-mannered,  amusing  babbler,  that  height  of  fame's 
tragi-comic  irony  has  been  his  fate  too  long.  In  the 
records  of  his  service,  and  in  the  Diary  read  by  their 
light,  there  resides  the  quality  which  the  critics  have 
found  wanting  and  blamed  him  for  lacking  —  devotion 
to  high  purpose  and  ideals,  and  a  sense  of  duty  which 
served  at  once  as  lofty  patriotism  or  sustaining  belief 
in  a  great  cause  might  have  to  another  type  of  mind. 
This  does  not  mean  that  he  was  a  perfect  character,  only 
a  very  human  man,  eminent  in  more  than  one  field  of 


THE  SERIOUS  PEPYS  129 

human  endeavor  and  of  great  service  to  his  fellow  men. 
To  the  appreciation  of  this  world's  goods  and  pleasures, 
to  intellectual  and  philanthropic  tastes,  to  the.  doctrines 
of  Franklin  and  Polonius,  he  added  a  sense  of  public 
duty  and  an  unremitting  industry,  with  talents  which 
lift  him  far  above  the  level  of  his  present  reputation,  as 
they  raised  him  above  the  generality  of  his  own  times. 

He  was,  in  short,  an  admirable  representative  of  a  class 
not  uncommon  during  the  Restoration  yet  not  typical  of 
it,  the  left-over  Puritans,  bred  in  the  sterner,  more  efficient 
school  of  the  Protectorate ;  on  whom,  amid  the  corrup- 
tion and  extravagance  of  shifty  politicians  and  dissolute 
courtiers,  rested  the  burden  of  the  state.  What  he  said 
of  another  applies  no  less  to  himself:  "It  is  pretty  to  see 
that  they  are  fain  to  find  out  an  old-fashioned  man  of 
Cromwell's  time  to  do  their  business  for  them."  "If 
it  comes  to  fighting,"  observed  one  of  his  acquaintances 
when  dangers  thickened  about  Charles  the  Second's 
path,  "the  King  must  rely  on  the  old  party";  and  this 
proved,  throughout,  scarcely  less  true  of  administration. 
With  all  its  faults,  the  Cromwellian  regime  had  one 
virtue  which  was  clearly  revealed  under  its  successor  — 
it  bred  strong  men.  They  were  not  seldom  far  from 
immaculate,  and  the  most  made  of  their  failings  was  by 
their  royalist  rivals ;  but  in  morals  they  were,  at  worst, 
below  the  level  of  their  generation,  and  in  efficiency  they 
rose  far  above  it.  Among  these  worthies  Pepys  holds  high 
place.  Admitting  all  the  frailties,  and  the  inconsistencies 
of  this  Puritan  in  Restoration  garb,  his  manners  and  his 
morals  not  untouched  with  something  of  the  weakness 
of  his  day,  there  yet  remains  a  man  whom  it  is  next  to 
impossible  to  dislike,  and  whom  it  would  be  wholly  im- 
possible, in  the  light  of  adequate  knowledge  of  his  career, 


130  MODERN  ESSAYS 

not  to  respect.  His  motto,  which  in  the  half-light  of  his 
Diary  has  long  seemed  so  appropriate  Mens  cujusque  is 
est  quisque — "as  a  man's  mind  is,  so  is  he,"  —  may, 
in  this  view,  well  be  replaced  by  one  far  more  appro- 
priate to  his  life,  "Seest  thou  a  man  diligent  in  his  business, 
he  shall  stand  before  kings." 


\ 


WHAT  THE  TEN- YEAR  SERGEANT  OF  POLICE 

TELLS  1 

BY 

Henry  Hastings  Curran 

Mr.  Curran  has  some  very  real  suggestions  to  make  regarding  the 
conditions  of  the  police  force  of  New  York  City.  The  difficulty  in  regard 
to  the  police  there  is  that  (a)  criminals  enter  the  police  force,  (6)  that 
the  policeman  is  untrained,  (c)  that  he  is  inadequately  paid,  (d)  that 
promotion  may  be  bought,  etc.  Similar  criticisms  individually  and 
collectively  have  been  made  so  often  that  the  public  has  lost  interest. 
Therefore  logically  he  introduces  his  main  essay  by  a  narrative  section 
in  which  he  tells  about  the  dramatic  murder  of  the  gambler  Rosenthal 
and  how  the  subject  came  to  have  a  particular  appropriateness  at  present. 
Having  by  this  means  gained  both  the  reader's  interest  and  his  con- 
fidence, he  proceeds  to  enumerate  his  proposed  criticisms. 

In  his  yearning  for  other  lands  and  other  days,  Kipling's 
Tommy  Atkins  laments  that  he  is  "learnin'  'ere  in  London 
what  the  ten -year  soldier  tells."  New  Yorkers  have 
been  learning  through  the  last  winter  something  of  what 
the  ten-year  sergeant  of  police  tells.  Their  equanimity  is 
not  increased  by  the  fact  that  this  veteran's  recital  holds 
true  of  many  another  American  city. 

The  school  was  set  in  motion  by  the  latest  accident  in 
government  by  investigation.  One  Herman  Rosenthal, 
a  professional  gambler,  who  had  fallen  out  with  his  police 

^  From  The  Yale  Review,  for  July,  1913,  by  permission  of  the  author 
and  of  the  editor  of  The  Yale  Review. 

131 


132  MODERN  ESSAYS 

protector,  had  agreed  to  call  on  the  District  Attorney 
on  a  July  morning  and  tell  what  he  knew.  The  appoint- 
ment was  not  kept.  Rosenthal  stepped  out  of  the  Hotel 
Metropole  at  two  o'clock  that  morning  in  response  to  a 
message  that  a  friend  wished  to  see  him,  and  was  shot  to 
death  the  moment  he  set  foot  upon  the  sidewalk.  The 
murderers  made  their  escape  from  this  brilliantly  lighted 
spot  in  the  Tenderloin  with  ridiculous  ease.  If  a  bystander 
had  not  caught  the  number  of  the  fleeing  automobile, 
the  efforts  of  the  District  Attorney  to  call  these  gunmen 
to  account  might  well  have  failed.  As  events  turned  out, 
not  only  were  the  four  gunmen  caught,  tried,  and  con- 
victed, but  the  police  lieutenant  involved  was  convicted 
of  complicity  in  the  affair,  and  all  five  are  in  Sing  Sing 
Prison,  sentenced  to  death. 

Meanwhile,  the  horrified  amazement  of  the  people  of 
the  city  had  turned  into  fiery  indignation  as  the  revela- 
tions following  the  shots  became  more  and  more  sinister 
in  their  indications  of  police  complicity  in  the  murder 
itself.  The  idea  that  a  lieutenant  of  police  could  turn  to 
organized  murder  to  protect  his  "graft"  from  exposure 
was  enough  to  shake  the  complacency  of  the  blindest.  In 
less  than  a  week  from  that  early  morning's  work,  a  move- 
ment was  on  foot  in  the  Board  of  Aldermen  to  investigate 
the  police  department. 

When  the  investigating  committee  began  its  work 
there  was  many  a  wiseacre  to  predict  that  "a  little  graft 
would  be  dug  up  —  enough  to  satisfy  the  public  —  then 
it  would  all  blow  over,  and  the  game  would  go  on  as 
before."  Others  scented  a  political  move  and  speculated 
upon  the  chance  of  elevating  a  moral  spasm  into  a  "moral 
issue."  And  still  others,  while  greedy  of  the  sensations  to 
come,  fell  back  upon  the  folly  of  attempting  to  improve 


WHAT  TEN-YEAR  POLICE  SERGEANT  TELLS     133 

conditions  without  changing  the  substantive  law  on 
gambling,  excise,  and  prostitution.  "The  people  want 
to  gamble,"  argued  these  last  doubters,  "and  laws  against 
gambling  cannot  be  enforced  ;  the  people  want  the  saloons 
open  on  Sunday,  and  you  cannot  keep  them  shut  by  law ; 
and  no  law  for  the  prohibition  of  prostitution  has  been 
possible  of  enforcement  since  the  beginning  of  time. 
These  are  State-made  laws,  and  the  legislators  from  the 
rural  districts,  who  are  still  in  the  majority  at  Albany, 
have  imposed  their  own  more  rigorous  ideas  of  morality 
upon  a  liberty-loving  metropolis  that  systematically 
sets  the  imposition  at  naught.  Until  the  law  represents 
the  will  of  the  people  of  this  city,  policemen  will  profit  by 
its  non-enforcement ;  and  all  the  investigations  in  the 
world  will  not  cut  out  the  cancer."  With  a  vigorous 
plea  for  home  rule  for  the  city  in  these  matters,  this  school 
of  critics  usually  dismissed  the  subject  as  exhausted  and 
settled,  on  that  basis. 

The  language  of  the  city's  charter  with  respect  to  alder- 
manic  investigations  is  simple  indeed : 

The  Board  of  Aldermen  shall  have  power  and  it  shall  be  its  duty  to  see 
to  the  faithful  execution  of  the  laws  and  ordinances  of  the  city ;  and  it 
may  appoint  from  time  to  time  a  special  committee  to  inquire  whether 
the  laws  and  ordinances  of  the  city  relating  to  any  subject  or  to  any  de- 
partment of  the  city  government  are  being  faithfully  observed,  and  the 
duties  of  the  officers  of  such  department  are  being  faithfully  dis- 
charged. .  .  . 

The  charter  framers  took  it  for  granted  that  law  is  made 
to  be  enforced.  They  decreed  further  that  it  be  the 
"duty,"  as  well  as  the  power,  of  the  Board  of  Aldermen 
"to  see  to  the  faithful  execution  of  the  laws  ...  of  the 
city " ;  and  nowhere  do  the  fathers  countenance  such 
deceitful  sacrifices  to  a  distorted  conception  of  personal 


134  MODERN  ESSAYS 

liberty  as  "partial"  or  "proportionate"  or  "reasonable" 
enforcement  of  law.  There  is  no  hint  in  the  books  of  a 
twilight  zone  between  what  is  and  is  not  crime,  save  as 
the  law  prescribes. 

The  committee  therefore,  in  obedience  to  its  charter 
mandate,  held  aloof  from  that  engaging  field  of  "when  is  a 
crime  not  a  crime,"  and  went  in  straight  pursuit  of  an 
answer  to  the  question,  "Is  the  law  enforced  and  are  the 
officers  of  the  police  department  faithfully  discharging 
their  duties?"  In  other  words,  New  York  for  the  first 
time  studied  its  police  department  as  a  problem  of  adminis- 
tration. Committees  have  come  and  gone,  startling  the 
city  with  the  depth  of  their  revelations  and  revolting 
their  audiences  to  the  point  of  satiety.  They  operated, 
but  they  took  no  steps  to  heal  the  disease  uncovered ; 
the  surgeon  dropped  his  work  with  his  knife,  and,  after 
calling  his  clinic  to  witness  what  the  gash  revealed,  left 
the  patient  to  recover  as  he  might.  This  committee  had 
a  different  conception  of  its  task. 

The  police  problem  is  one  of  character,  and  the  key 
to  a  policeman's  character  is  the  kind  of  administration 
under  which  he  lives.  A  police  career  should  be  as 
honorable  as  an  army  career,  with  its  incentive  to  ambition 
and  its  reward  for  merit.  Is  it  aided,  then,  or  hindered, 
by  the  way  in  which  the  department  is  managed.'*  Is 
the  policeman  fortified  by  his  environment  and  handling 
to  resist  temptation,  or  is  the  fortitude  he  brings  into  the 
department  with  him  sapped  and  buffeted  to  exhaustion 
by  bad  management  ?  Let  the  ten-year  sergeant  —  one 
of  the  honest  majority  —  give  a  few  glimpses  of  his  ex- 
perience, as  seen  through  the  lens  of  this  latest  investi- 
gation, and  perhaps  even  this  fragmentary  kaleidoscope 
will  reveal  something  of  the  intense  directness  of  the  pres- 


WHAT  TEN- YEAR  POLICE  SERGEANT  TELLS     135 

sure  which  administration  brings  to  bear  upon  the  charac- 
ter of  the  "cop." 

When  a  square- jawed,  well-framed  young  fellow  leaves 
his  truck  or  workshop  and  "  makes  the  cops  "  in  New  York, 
he  does  so  by  way  of  a  civil  service  examination,  mental 
and  physical.  He  may  be  of  very  ordinary  mental  calibre, 
but  must  be  physically  without  a  flaw.  In  his  application 
he  must  give  his  previous  history  and  employment, 
and  answer  under  oath  whether  he  has  been  arrested, 
indicted,  or  convicted,  giving  the  circumstances.  Then 
he  is  looked  up.  New  York  recruits  its  police  force 
at  the  rate  of  thirty  men  a  month,  and  the  Civil  Service 
Commission  confesses  to  having  to  look  up  the  char- 
acter of  this  human  stream  with  the  aid  of  just  two 
investigators.  Prior  to  the  present  police  administra- 
tion, an  effective  character  investigation  bureau  was 
maintained  at  police  headquarters,  under  the  capable 
direction  of  Lieutenant  John  Stanton,  to  supplement  the 
absurdly  inadequate  staff  of  the  Civil  Service  Commission. 
This  bureau  delved  into  such  refinements  as  the  detection, 
by  watermarks,  of  bogus  Irish  county  birth-certificates, 
whereby  many  an  intending  "copper"  was  caught  swearing 
falsely  as  to  his  age  and  promptly  prevented  from  begin- 
ning a  police  career  with  a  successful  lie  upon  his  lips.  But 
this  bureau  was  abolished  by  the  present  administration, 
and  the  ten-year  sergeant  has  seen  thirty-eight  men 
appointed  by  the  present  commissioner  who  were  known 
by  him  to  have  sworn  falsely  that  they  had  never  been 
arrested.  How  many  more  of  this  ilk  have  come  in  since, 
the  public  will  never  know,  for  the  machinery  of  detection 
has  been  thrown  into  the  scrap  heap.  One  of  these  men 
had  been  acquitted  of  murder  (shooting),  and  of  felonious 
assault   (stabbing),   after  arrest,   in   addition  to  having 


136  MODERN  ESSAYS 

been  sued  by  his  wife  for  non-support  and  brutal  treatment. 
Letters  against  his  character  were  on  file  in  the  depart- 
ment, and  the  boy  he  had  stabbed,  in  his  barber  shop  in 
Brooklyn,  had  protested  both  to  the  Mayor  and  the  com- 
missioner against  making  the  man  a  policeman.  When 
the  boy  told  his  story  before  the  committee,  the  deep 
red  of  the  scar  he  bore  from  the  stabbing,  running  from 
the  ear  to  the  point  of  the  jaw,  was  visible  across  the  whole 
space  of  the  aldermanic  chamber.  A  present  deputy 
commissioner  accounted,  on  the  witness  stand,  for  the 
assailant's  appointment  as  follows  : 

Q.  Then  if  anybody  can  escape  going  to  jail,  he  is  a  good  enough 
policeman  for  you  —  is  that  right  ? 

A.     Yes,  sir ;  he  is  a  good  enough  policeman  for  me. 

And  the  commissioner  thus  explained : 

I  am  stating  that,  in  my  opinion,  when  a  man  has  been  tried  for  a 
crime  and  has  been  acquitted,  it  is  not  incumbent  upon  any  public  official 
to  condemn  him  or  conduct  any  further  prosecution  of  him.  .  .  .  Any 
man  who,  after  indictment,  has  been  acquitted,  is  good  enough  for  me. 

The  commissioner  did  not  seem  to  perceive  that  it  was 
not  a  question  of  prosecuting  or  condemning  a  man,  but 
of  clothing  him  in  blue,  giving  him  a  gun  and  a  club, 
and  making  him  a  guardian  of  the  peace  and  the  State's 
witness  for  twenty-five  years  to  come.  Another  applicant- 
perjurer  had  been  arrested  for  seduction,  discharged  upon 
agreeing  to  marry,  had  then  cruelly  beaten  his  wife  and 
abandoned  her,  and,  finally,  had  struck  a  bargain  with  his 
mother-in-law  to  pay  her  five  dollars  a  month  if  she  would 
keep  those  incidents  from  the  knowledge  of  the  depart- 
ment. They  came  to  the  present  commissioner's  knowl- 
edge and  he  promptly  made  the  man  a  policeman.  Still 
another  man,  appointed  a  few  years  ago  and  escaping 


WHAT  TEN- YEAR   FOLfCE  SERGEANT  TELLS     IST 

even  the  vigilanee  of  the  department's  character  investiga- 
tion, had  served  a  year"  in  the  King's  County  Penitentiary 
for  burglary.  Thus  the  ten^^y^a)?'  sergeant,  standing  at 
the  gate  of  the  citadel  of  police  headcfuarter's^  has  seen 
this  band  of  liars  enter  and  made  welcome  in  the  places 
where  truth  should  be  the  first  quality ;  and  many  a 
truth-telling  young  fellow  he  has  seen  left  standing 
without,  because  the  liars  spelled  or  punctuated  a  little 
better.  He  has  also  seen  the  dismissal  from  the  force  of 
that  Lieutenant  Stanton  who  testified  to  the  committee, 
under  subpoena,  of  his  character  investigation  work, 
before  the  present  commissioner  did  away  with  it.  Follow- 
ing his  testimony,  came  a  charge  of  attempted  extortion, 
suddenly  remembered  after  three  years  by  the  com- 
missioner's former  policeman-chauffeur ;  then  Stanton's 
trial  and  dismissal,  though  his  record  in  the  department 
was  clean  for  seventeen  years  back.  This  extraordinary 
charge  was,  immediately  after  the  police  trial,  thoroughly 
sifted  and  exploded  before  the  aldermanic  committee, 
but  Stanton  remains  the  sacrifice  of  the  investigation. 

When  the  new  policeman  has  run  the  preliminary  gaunt- 
let and  is  finally  appointed  to  be  one  of  "the  finest,"  he 
is  corralled  for  thirty  days  in  the  school  of  recruits  to  be 
*' halter-broken."  Here  he  receives  competent  instruction 
in  pistol  practice,  drilling,  and  humane  handling  of 
prisoners,  with  many  a  sharp  fall  from  the  wrestling  teacher 
who  shows  the  different  grips.  In  the  old  days,  there  was 
also  fruitf id  schooling  in  the  law  of  crime,  gathering  of  evi- 
dence, and  presentation  of  the  State's  case  in  court,  with  an 
active  moot  court  in  session  to  demonstrate  indelibly  this 
vital  part  of  a  policeman's  work.  The  mental  training, 
however,  has  fallen  into  decay,  and  its  old  vigor  is  now 
replaced  by  hours  of  monologue  from  a  captain  to  a  score 


138  MODERN  ESSAYS 

of  perspiring  truckmen  who  neither  ask  nor  are  asked 
questions.  With  no  running  stimulus  to  independent 
tliinking,  there  is  also  no  test  at  the  end,  in  which  respect 
the  police  probationer  may  wake  a  chord  of  envy  in  the 
collegiate  heart.  London  schools  its  police  neophytes 
for  six  weeks,  and  Diisseldorf,  supplying  schooled  recruits 
to  the  Rhine  provinces,  for  eleven  weeks,  while  a  German 
policeman  must  first  have  been  a  "non-com"  in  the 
German  Army,  with  at  least  six  years  of  army  experience. 
That  New  York,  without  the  extra  safeguards  of  the  British 
and  the  Germans,  should  turn  its  policemen  out  on 
the  street  equipped  with  thirty  days  of  mental  malnutri- 
tion, serves  to  show  another  of  the  honest  policeman's 
initial  handicaps. 

A  more  serious  instance  of  starting  a  man  on  his  race 
with  a  hobble  about  his  knees  is  encountered  in  the  rate  of 
pay  of  the  first  and  second  year  patrolmen,  and  this  is  a 
matter  that  the  ten-year  sergeant  has  been  through 
himself.  The  $800  of  the  first  year  becomes  $900  in  the 
second,  and  then  ranges  upward  by  degrees  until  it  reaches 
the  patrolman's  maximum  of  $1400  at  the  end  of  the 
fifth  year.  The  $800  is  quite  fictitious.  It  is  in  fact 
only  $556.64,  as  the  city  takes  back  the  balance  by  com- 
pelling the  new  patrolman  to  buy  his  entire  equipment 
out  of  his  own  pocket.  Summer  and  winter  uniforms, 
raincoat,  boots,  billet,  locust  night-stick,  whistle,  nippers, 
revolver  and  cartridges,  rawhide  straps,  cap-devices  — 
these  and  a  thousand  and  one  other  expenses  must  be 
footed  by  the  patrolman.  He  must  even  pay  for  his  bed- 
ding at  the  station-house,  where  he  is  required  to  be  when 
asleep  on  reserve  ;  and  his  pension  and  benevolent  associa- 
tion dues  complete  the  rebate  that  he  thus  furnishes  the 
city.     The   wives   of   175   patrolmen   picked   at   random 


WHAT  TEN-YEAR  POLICE  SERGEANT  TELLS     139 

have  told  the  committee  their  experience,  with  figures 
of  household  budgets.  They  pass  muster  in  thrift  and 
frugality,  but  their  little  savings  cannot  bridge  the  gap 
between  a  salary  of  $556.64  and  an  average  budget  for 
family  purposes  of  $848.71.  It  is  only  debt  that  finds 
room  in  this  gap,  with  the  tradesman  and  the  doctor  vying 
for  the  monthly  pay  cheque,  and  the  loan  shark  ever  at 
the  door.  One  of  these  parasites  finally  collected  $60 
from  a  patrolman  for  a  loan  of  $30.  It  needs  only  a  slight 
dereliction  of  duty  to  bring  down  a  fine  upon  the  patrol- 
man's head,  and  then  it  is  the  wife  and  babies  who  are 
punished.  Fines  are  deducted  from  the  offender's  pay, 
and  there  has  been  much  thoughtful  condemnation  of  this 
instrument  of  discipline.  The  New  York  policeman  thus 
begins  his  career  in  debt,  and  if  he  yields  before  some  of  the 
graft  that  is  thrust  at  him,  must  the  condemnation  be 
blind  to  all  causes.^  One  has  little  patience  with  those 
sympathetic  souls  who  would  excuse  a  policeman  from 
wrong-doing  because  he  is  peculiarly  tempted ;  the  town 
is  thoroughly  sated  with  this  maudlin  fashion  of  talk. 
But  has  the  city  done  its  part  when  it  fastens  the  shield 
with  the  city's  seal  on  the  breast  of  the  new  "cop"  with 
one  hand,  and  with  a  niggardly  clutch  of  the  other  pulls 
him  aside  into  unavoidable  debt  ? 

The  old  saying,  "You  must  take  'em  young,"  applies  to 
the  policeman.  Let  him  "get  away"  with  a  fraud  at  his 
entrance,  and  he  will  try  another  before  he  has  long  been 
in.  The  next  step  is  promotion,  and  on  this  point  a 
police  captain,  of  years  gone  by,  has  testified  to  the  follow- 
ing miniature  of  high  finance : 

A.     I  was  not  three  months  on  the  police  before  somebody  came  to  me 
and  wanted  $300  to  have  me  detailed  to  the  Harbor  Squad. 
Q.     Did  you  pay  it  ? 


UO  MODERN  ESSAYS 

A.     No,  sir. 

Q.     Were  you  detailed  ? 

A.  No,  sir.  Five  or  six  months  after  that  my  grandmother  died, 
and  she  left  a  little  money  to  my  mother,  and  the  scouts  heard  about 
that,  and  they  came  around  and  wanted  to  make  me  a  roundsman  for 
$600. 

This  captain  was  under  examination  concerning  a  story 
that  he  had  done  some  negotiating  for  the  payment  of 
$10,000  to  a  politician  for  his  promotion  to  his  captaincy. 
The  colloquy  over  this  reveals  a  refreshing  degree  of 
frankness. 

Q.     Would  you  be  willing  to  pay  $10,000  for  your  promotion  ? 

A.     If  somebody  else  paid  it  for  me.     I  would  not  have  paid  it. 

Q.     You  would  have  consented  to  have  had  it  paid  ? 

A.     Most  assuredly  I  would.     I  wanted  to  get  promoted. 

Q.     How  would  you  get  the  $10,000  back  ? 

A.  I  do  not  know  (lavyhtcr).  There  is  a  legacy  coming  to  me,  and 
I  would  be  able  to  pay  it  back  some  day. 

Q.  How  would  you  get  the  $10,000  back  that  you  had  to  put  up  for  a 
captaincy  ? 

A.     Why  the  job  was  worth  it  (laughter). 

Q.     How  ? 

A.  For  the  simple  reason  that  you  do  not  have  to  work  nights.  You 
can  sleep  all  night  (laughter). 

If  ever  a  department  of  city  government  should  have  its 
drawbridge  up  and  gates  bolted  against  politicians,  how- 
ever well-intentioned,  the  police  department  is  that  one. 
The  insidious  plague  that  has  suddenly  destroyed  the 
chestnut  trees  of  a  continent  is  no  more  potent  in  its 
blight  than  is  the  devastation  of  discipline  that  political 
access  can  work  in  a  police  department.  The  police 
commissioners  who  have  come  and  gone  are  a  unit  on 
this  point.  Is  anj^one  yet  so  simple  as  to  think  that  a 
policeman  who  benefits  in  his  calling  by  political  favor 


WHAT  TEN-YEAR  POLICE  SERGEANT  TELLS     141 

will  not  some  day  have  to  repay  that  favor  by  winking 
at  an  infraction  of  the  law?  And  that  is  quite  apart 
from  many  a  cash  payment  made  in  bygone  days,  if  rumor 
be  true. 

Ten  years  ago,  Captain  Miles  O'Reilly,  who  bears  the 
distinctive  appellation  of  "Honest  Miles  O'Reilly,"  was  in 
command  of  the  Oak  Street  precinct  and  on  the  look-out 
for  malingerers.  So,  when  at  three  o'clock  one  morning, 
four  of  his  men  were  discovered  "shooting  craps"  in  the 
back  room  of  a  saloon  when  they  were  supposed  to  be  on 
duty,  there  was  trouble  ahead.  O'Reilly  was  a  good  deal 
of  a  disciplinarian  in  his  day,  and  the  particular  "crap- 
shooter"  who  figures  in  this  drama  was  promptly  dismissed 
from  the  force.  With  an  ambition  to  return  to  the  fold, 
the  dismissed  patrolman  went  to  court ;  he  was  rejected 
with  equal  promptness  by  two  courts,  the  second  being 
the  court  of  last  resort  of  the  State.  He  then  accom- 
plished the  passage,  by  the  legislature  of  the  State  of  New 
York,  of  a  special  Act  reinstating  him  as  a  policeman, 
which  was  vetoed  by  Mayor  McClellan.  Then  came  a 
general  Act,  with  a  retroactive  clause  to  admit  the  "crap- 
shooter,"  but  General  Bingham,  then  commissioner, 
used  the  discretion  given  him  by  turning  this  bad  penny 
down  again.  The  fifth  attempt,  made  upon  the  present 
commissioner,  succeeded,  and  "Honest  Miles  O'Reilly's" 
tarrier  is  back  again  after  nine  years  of  lobbying,  with  a 
new  uniform  and  a  service  stripe,  as  lively  as  a  cricket, 
while  the  passing  decade  has  seen  the  honorable  retire- 
ment of  his  old  commander.  The  slang  phrase  that  "they 
never  come  back"  boasts  two  notable  exceptions  in 
Rip  Van  Winkle  and  this  peripatetic  patrolman.  The 
ten-year  sergeant  knows  this  as  "a  reinstatement,"  and 
he  has  seen  more  than  one  man  justly  dismissed  by  the 


142  MODERN  ESSAYS 

last  administration  but  cheerfully  reinstated  under  the 
present  regime,  with  rank  still  equal  to  that  of  his  comrade 
who  had  escaped  this  vacation  by  steadily  doing  his  duty. 
When  the  aldermanic  investigation  began,  the  ten-year 
sergeant  had  not  only  seen  a  dismissed  patrolman  come 
back  after  nine  years  of  lobbying,  but  he  had  also  seen 
eight  police  commissioners  come  and  go  in  eleven  years. 
Birds  of  passage,  a  former  deputy  commissioner  has  testi- 
fied that  "  the  force  gets  a  glimpse  of  them  flying  over  and 
hardly  has  time  to  determine  their  species."  Commis- 
sioners come  and  go,  but  the  policeman  goes  on  forever. 
And  with  this  tradition,  has  come  about  a  sort  of  police 
peerage,  a  group  of  powerful  barons  in  the  department 
who,  holding  the  higher  offices,  can  make  and  unmake 
a  commissioner.  If  the  barons  become  disaffected,  the 
commissioner's  days  are  numbered.  Judge  McAdoo,  a 
former  commissioner,  has  testified  that  in  November, 
1905,  standing  odds  of  two  to  one  were  posted  in 
every  gambling  house  in  town  that  "McAdoo  would  not 
last  beyond  the  year."  There  were  no  takers,  and 
McAdoo  went  when  the  clock  struck  twelve  on  New 
Year's  Eve.  The  police  barons  manufacture  "crime 
waves,"  bring  pressure  upon  a  mayor  vested  with  power 
to  remove  the  commissioner,  stir  up  political  sorties  by 
the  "outs"  against  the  "ins"  of  police  officialdom,  and 
never  yet  have  they  failed  to  get  the  head  of  the  ruler. 
That  these  Igorrotes  administer  the  lair  of  such  "crooks" 
as  the  department  harbors,  might  well  be  believed,  even 
in  the  absence  of  the  recent  conviction  of  four  inspectors 
now  in  stripes  on  Blackwell's  Island.  The  young  police- 
man is  under  the  command  of  these  higher  officers,  and 
he  has  his  own  existence  to  look  to,  with  always  the  chance 
of  a  "frame-up"  if  he  displeases  the  barons  by  unwelcome 


WHAT  TEN- YEAR  POLICE  SERGEANT  TELLS     143 

zeal  in  protected  fields  of  law-breaking.  This  is  the 
"system."  The  presence  of  a  number  of  higher  officers 
of  sterling  uprightness  only  emphasizes  the  "gait"  of 
the  others.  With  these  men  so  difficult  to  dislodge  that 
some  have,  uncannily  enough,  been  honorably  retired  on 
pension  just  to  get  them  out  of  the  department,  the  barons 
command  respect  in  the  ranks  when  the  commissioner 
cannot.  General  Bingham  has  testified  that  when  the 
peerage  carried  its  power  into  the  legislature,  he  was 
compelled,  to  his  military  amazement,  to  take  the  defen- 
sive before  the  legislative  committee  and,  in  trying  to 
defeat  their  legislation,  to  face  a  volley  of  questions  from 
spokesmen  of  his  own  subordinates.  In  other  words, 
the  head  of  the  house  was  called  sharply  to  account  for 
opposing  a  bill  emanating  from  his  own  entourage  !  That 
each  of  these  commissioners  who  succeeded  each  other  so 
rapidly  has  different  ideas  from  those  of  his  predecessor, 
which  he  invariably  puts  into  effect,  only  increases  the 
confusion  of  the  policeman  who  must  do  his  work  in  such 
a  remarkable  household. 

There  are  few  young  policemen  who  do  not  cherish  an 
ambition  to  serve  in  the  detective  bureau.  The  plain 
clothes  of  the  "bull"  are  a  magnet  of  envy  that  n^er 
fails  to  draw.  With  a  sense  of  romance  and  responsibility 
begotten  of  boyhood,  the  chance  of  a  high  esprit  de  corps 
here  would  seem  second  to  none.  That  opportunity  is 
now  in  abeyance.  Maladministration  has  emptied  head- 
quarters of  detectives  and  scattered  them  to  the  precincts, 
with  the  inevitable  disappearance  of  cohesion,  team  work, 
and  conference.  The  "Italian  Squad,"  a  famous  set  of 
men  who  under  the  valiant  Petrosino  proved  the  first 
effective  check  to  bomb-throwing,  kidnapping,  and  the 
"Black   Hand,"    has    been    abolished.     The    pickpocket 


144  MODERN  ESSAYS 

squad,  specialists  in  capturing  these  disciples  of  Fagin, 
is  gone.  Captain  Carey's  homicide  squad  has  been 
scattered,  and  his  human  bloodhounds  are  more  likely 
now  to  be  found  on  the  trail  of  Saturday-night  street 
brawls  than  of  murder.  In  short,  specialization,  the  main 
support  of  detective  efficiency,  has  received  its  death 
blow.  Abolished  also  is  the  "morning  hne-up,"  the 
daily  array  of  crooks  at  headquarters  for  inspection  and 
identification  by  detectives  under  mask.  Worst  of  all, 
8,400  pictures  in  the  "Rogues'  Gallery"  have  been  burned 
up  in  the  furnace  at  headquarters,  by  official  order,  to- 
gether with  the  accompanying  Bertillon  records,  and  this 
invaluable  aid  to  criminal  justice  in  all  parts  of  the  country 
is  a  thing  of  the  past.  The  number  of  arrested  persons 
now  "mugged"  is  so  paltry  as  to  be  negligible  —  O 
personal  liberty,  "what  crimes  are  committed  in  thy 
name!"  With  the  temple  thus  pulled  down  over  the 
departmental  head,  and  the  detectives  searching  for  tools 
to  work  with,  the  rotation  of  members  of  the  bureau  has 
proceeded  so  fast  that  in  fifteen  months  254  men  went  in 
and  290  went  out  and  back  to  patrol  duty,  out  of  an 
average  complement  of  500  in  the  bureau.  The  prophet 
has  not  yet  appeared  who  will  essay  to  prove  that  detec- 
tives may  thus  be  made  overnight. 

The  ten-year  sergeant  found  the  detective's  climax 
capped  when  he  heard  of  the  ostrich  feather  exploit  of  a 
June  night  last  year.  The  detective  bureau,  with  a 
laudable  ambition  to  put  three  known  "loft  burglars" 
behind  the  bars,  engaged  the  services  of  a  "stool-pigeon," 
that  is  to  say,  another  "crook,"  who  cheerfully  agreed 
to  lead  his  comrades  into  a  police  trap  for  the  price. 
Twenty-five  dollars  of  the  city's  money  was  spent  for 
a  kit  of  burglar  tools,  and  further  funds  for  wining  and 


WHAT  TEN-YEAR  POLICE   SERGEANT  TELLS     145 

dinmg  the  three  "crooks,"  the  vouchers  for  all  of  which 
now  lie  in  state  in  the  comptroller's  office.  The  plan  was 
prettily  set  for  a  midnight  melodrama  opposite  old  Grace 
Church  on  Broadway,  and  the  appointed  time  and  place 
found  the  three  burglars  and  their  obliging  "stool-pigeon" 
friend  busily  blowing  a  hole  into  the  loft  building  which 
contained  the  goal  of  their  hopes,  the  dynamite  being 
also  a  municipal  investment.  The  trio  being  engaged  in 
the  loft,  their  automobile  and  chauffeur  accomplice  waiting 
in  Union  Square,  a  few  blocks  away,  for  the  signal,  and  the 
department's  detectives  planted  in  adjacent  doorways,  the 
little  drama  came  to  its  climax  upon  the  collision  of  these 
three  expeditions.  The  burglars  were  on  the  sidewalk 
with  bags  stuffed  with  several  thousand  dollars'  worth  of 
ostrich  feathers,  the  automobile  speeding  to  the  rescue 
had  slowed  up  at  the  curb  to  take  aboard  the  thieves  and 
their  loot,  when  at  the  proper  moment  a  swarm  of  de- 
tectives swept  down  upon  the  adventurers  and  captured 
the  entire  outfit,  without  a  shot  or  a  struggle.  This  con- 
stitutes the  official  burglary,  but  the  unofficial  burglary 
came  to  light  the  next  morning  when  the  merchant  who 
had  unwittingly  provided  the  scenery  for  the  drama 
counted  up  his  losses  and  then,  in  the  station-house  of 
the  precinct,  whither  the  feathers  had  been  taken,  made 
an  inventory  of  the  capture.  As  the  value  of  the  feathers 
in  the  hands  of  the  police  was  $1,500  less  than  that  of  the 
feathers  taken  from  the  loft,  and  a  hard-hearted  burglar 
insurance  company  had  felt  certain  enough  of  the  loss  to 
pay  over  the  $1,500  to  the  merchant,  the  disappearing 
difference  in  the  feathers  survived  as  the  greater  mystery. 
Although  no  one  but  the  detectives  and  the  crooks  had 
been  on  the  spot,  and  the  detectives  had  captured  the 
crooks,  they  vouchsafed  no  answer  to  the  mystery  of  who 


146  MODERN  ESSAYS 

had  captured  tlie  missing  feathers.  The  play  became 
still  more  a  burlesque  when  the  lieutenant  of  detectives 
a  few  days  later  demanded  and  received  from  the  merchant 
$175  as  a  reward  for  personal  bravery. 

Mary  Goode's  testimony  marked  the  beginning  of  the 
committee's  inquiry  into  the  department's  methods  of 
handling  vice.  Self-confessed  proprietress  of  a  disorderly 
house,  she  passed  across  the  stage  with  a  modesty  of  de- 
meanor and  modulated  gentility  of  speech  that  well-nigh 
gave  the  lie  to  her  vocation.  When  attacked  by  a  hostile 
member  of  the  committee,  her  discerning  retort,  complete 
in  its  answer,  was  delivered  so  quietly  and  with  such 
evident  sincerity  that  her  story  has  never  since  been 
questioned.  Her  tale  is  worn  threadbare  in  private 
knowledge  but  seldom  told  in  public  under  oath.  The 
shifting  of  zones  of  prostitution,  the  dreariness  of  the 
trade,  the  cupidity  of  police  officials,  and  the  incessant 
payment  of  "protection"  money  to  their  collectors  were 
only  a  few  of  the  familiar  incidents  related.  The  ten-year 
sergeant  knows  this  story  by  heart.  It  concerns  more 
than  him.  He  could  not,  however,  know  her  estimate 
of  the  number  of  prostitutes,  showing  a  total  of  35,000 
fallen  women  in  New  York  City.  One  need  not  stand 
aghast  when  he  compares  this  figure  with  that  of  the  10,000 
similarly  unfortunate  women  that  an  aldermanic  com- 
mittee found  domiciled  in  the  town  seventy  years  ago. 
There  were  some  500,000  people  in  the  present  city  area 
in  1843,  where  there  are  now  5,250,000.  So  the  old  propor- 
tion was  one  prostitute  to  every  fifty  of  population,  where 
now  it  is  only  one  to  every  one  hundred  and  fifty.  Hope 
may  lie  there. 

George  A.  Sipp,  who  had  kept  a  "hotel"  in  Harlem,  fol- 
lowed the  Goode  story  within  a  week,  and  his  unadorned 


WHAT  TEN- YEAR  POLICE  SERGEANT  TELLS     147 

tale  of  consistent  pajanent  for  police  protection  was  equally 
convincing.  He  served  the  additionally  useful  purpose  of 
introducing  the  committee  to  the  "friendly  collar,"  a 
species  of  arrest  that  is  visited  from  time  to  time  upon 
protected  law  breakers,  to  keep  the  precinct  record 
straight.  The  difference  between  an  ordinary  "collar" 
and  a  "friendly  collar"  is  that  the  arresting  officers  suffer  a 
lapse  of  memory  when  they  appear  in  court  against  the 
victim  of  the  latter,  so  that  the  case  fails  and  is  "turned 
out";  but  the  record  of  arrests  shows  a  fine  degree  of 
activity,  pro  bono  publico,  on  the  part  of  the  profiting 
police  protectors. 

The  ten-year  sergeant  knows  Sipp's  story  as  well  as  he 
knows  Mary  Goode's,  for  the  police  barons  rule  more  by 
fear  than  by  secrecy.  But  he  knows  more.  He  is  aware 
that  citizens  constantly  write  to  the  commissioner  accusing 
police  officers  of  "grafting"  from  gambling  and  dis- 
orderly houses,  and  has  learned  to  his  amazement  that  the 
practice  of  the  present  commissioner  is  to  refer  all  such 
complaints  to  the  officers  accused  for  investigation.  In  a 
test  period  of  fourteen  months,  in  the  present  adminis- 
tration, out  of  301  such  complaints,  270  are  found  to  have 
been  politely  forwarded  to  the  accused  policemen,  or  their 
immediate  superiors  involved  by  inference  in  the  accusa- 
tion, with  a  request  to  investigate  themselves.  As  many 
as  190  were  referred  to  the  officers  in  question  merely 
for  their  "information."  When  these  Spartan  police- 
men investigated,  they  invariably  found  themselves  not 
guilty  and  solemnly  so  reported  to  the  commissioner, 
who  must  have  been  immensely  relieved  to  find  his  offi- 
cers so  sure  of  themselves.  One  letter,  addressed  to 
the  Mayor  and  forwarded  to  the  commissioner,  ran  as 
follows : 


148  MODERN  ESSAYS 

March  27,  1912. 
Hon.  W.  J.  Gaynor : 

I  would  like  to  have  you  investigate  quietly  Lieut.  Becker.  He  is 
now  collecting  more  money  than  Devery,  and  it  is  well  known  to  every- 
one at  Police  Headquarters.     Please  do  this  and  you  will  be  surprised 

at  the  result. 

Yours, 

Henhy  Williams. 

This  was  "respectfully  referred  to  Lieutenant  Becker  for 
investigation  and  report,"  and  the  Lieutenant  himself,  in 
this  case,  respectfully  suggested  in  his  report  that  someone 
else  might  better  do  the  investigating.  The  Lieutenant  is 
now  in  prison  for  the  murder  of  Rosenthal.  A  complaint 
that  one  of  Inspector  Sweeney's  "wardmen"  was  "graft- 
ing" was  referred  to  the  Inspector  for  investigation  and 
report,  and  the  latter  promptly  absolved  himself.  He  is 
now  confined  in  the  penitentiary  for  conspiracy.  With 
no  system  of  informing  himself  of  conditions,  to  check 
the  reassurances  of  his  lying  subordinates,  the  present 
commissioner  has  coupled  an  honest  effort  to  enforce 
the  gambling  law  with  a  studied  indifference  to  Sunday 
liquor-selling  and  to  the  heyday  of  disorderly  house  ac- 
tivity that  has  reigned ;  and  his  idea  of  "auto-investiga- 
tion" by  accused  policemen  has  led  straight  into  the  Rosen- 
thal murder.  The  ten-year  sergeant  wonders  that  the 
explosion  did  not  come  before. 

When  the  agitation  for  this  investigation  was  begun,  the 
sensation-loving  portion  of  the  public  found  its  food  in  the 
committee's  struggle  for  permission  to  exist.  With  high 
city  officials  of  every  persuasion  offering  obstacle  after 
obstacle  to  a  police  inquiry  of  any  kind,  there  was  presented 
a  steeplechase  of  such  stiffness  and  variety  that  all  New 
York  took  a  sporting  interest  in  the  running.  The  jumps 
all  taken  and  the  course  to  the  arena  run,  there  followed 


WHAT  TEN-YEAR  POLICE  SERGEANT  TELLS     149 

the  period  of  "great  expectations."  The  audience 
clamored  for  blood.  "Show  us  the  graft!  Give  us  the 
'man  higher  up.'  Produce  or  get  off !"  Thus  the  cry  of 
the  crowd,  the  yearning  for  a  human  sacrifice,  with  its 
opportunity  for  the  turning  down  of  tliumbs.  Meanwhile 
the  committee  had  been  going  about  its  business  seeking 
the  answer  to  the  question,  "Is  the  law  of  the  city  faith- 
fully observed  and  are  the  duties  of  its  officers  faithfully 
discharged  .f* "  The  administration  of  the  department 
was  and  is  the  problem,  and  the  driest  details  received 
their  due  notice  in  the  sclieme.  In  December  the  inquiry 
was  pointing  up,  in  its  logical  course,  to  the  department's 
method  of  handling  gambling  and  prostitution,  and  its 
machinery  was  working  smoothly,  and  fruitfully,  with 
every  promise  of  the  beneficial  results  that  must  accrue 
from  careful  study  as  distinguished  from  sensation  seeking. 
From  the  point  of  view  of  the  sensation  lovers,  however, 
the  affair  was  quite  in  the  doldrums,  and  was  becoming 
generally  labelled  as  a  humdrum,  sewing-machine  matter, 
soon  to  die  and  best  forgotten.  Most  serious  of  all, 
the  modest  appropriation  was  nearly  exhausted,  and  those 
hostile  to  the  inquiry  could  prevent  the  granting  of  another 
dollar  unless  there  were  a  public  demand  that  would  not 
brook  denial.  That  a  great  number  of  thinking  people 
wanted  the  inquiry  completed  along  its  proper  lines  did 
not  lessen  the  opportunity  of  the  hostile. 

At  this  point  of  peril,  Mary  Goode's  story  came  to  the 
rescue  with  the  spectacular  suddenness  of  lightning.  Back 
came  the  special  writers  of  the  newspapers  who  had 
"featured"  the  inquiry  in  the  beginning  but  had  long  since 
fled  to  more  exciting  fields.  Back  came  the  audience, 
which  had  dwindled  to  a  dozen  when  Mary  Goode  took 
the  stand,  but  now  thronged  the  chamber  at  every  hearing. 


150  MODERN  ESSAYS 

Back  came  public  interest,  with  three-column  headlines 
in  the  papers  and  animated  discussion  wherever  in  the 
town  one  man  might  meet  with  another.  The  chasm  was 
crossed,  the  extra  appropriation  granted  with  eulogies 
from  friend  and  foe  alike,  and  the  street-corner  comment 
changed  to,  "Now  you're  doing  something  —  keep  it  up  !" 

Sipp's  story  a  week  later  settled  all  uncertainty,  and  his- 
tory records  the  punitive  aftermath  of  that  revelation  of 
revenge :  A  score  of  policemen  indicted,  two  patrolmen 
convicted  and  in  Sing  Sing,  a  captain  and  another  patrol- 
man who  have  confessed,  awaiting  sentence.  And,  finally, 
for  the  first  time  in  its  history.  New  York  has  witnessed 
the  spectacle  of  four  inspectors  of  police  —  the  highest 
rank  in  the  uniformed  force  —  in  stripes,  with  heads 
shaved,  making  brooms  and  mending  shoes  within  the 
gray  walls  of  a  penitentiary.  That  the  story  of  one  man 
before  an  aldermanic  committee  should  give  the  District 
Attorney  an  opportunity  to  carry  his  masterly  pursuit  of 
crooked  policemen  to  the  point  already  reached,  was  a 
chance  by-product  of  an  administrative  investigation 
that  looms  larger  and  larger  in  its  educational  benefit  to 
the  police  and  the  community.  Having  set  the  Sipp 
saturnalia  in  motion,  the  committee  returned  to  its 
patient,  closed  its  ears  to  the  clamor  of  the  clinic,  and 
quietly  finished  its  work. 

Will  the  analysis  be  followed  by  synthesis?  Will  the 
public  remember  long  enough  to  see  that  punitive  de- 
struction is  followed  by  administrative  construction? 
Preventive  hygiene  will  be  required  to  follow  convales- 
cence. If  the  call  is  not  heeded,  the  consequences  will 
come  in  the  shape  of  another  police  explosion  and  another 
police  investigation.     The  ten-year  sergeant  knows  this. 

He  will  well  know,  too,  whether  the  events  of  1913  have 


WHAT  TEN- YEAR  POLICE   SERGEANT  TELLS      151 

helped  to  give  the  police  the  administrative  backbone  of  a 
"career."  If  they  have  not,  the  adage  that  "the  police- 
man's lot  is  not  a  happy  one,"  will  still  apply  to  him,  for 
he  is  of  the  honest  and  preponderant  portion  of  an  army 
that  New  York  honors  to  a  man  for  its  courage,  and  wants 
to  honor  to  a  man  for  its  uprightness.  But  if  they  have, 
the  ten-year  sergeant  may  translate  Tommy  Atkins  for  a 
new  toast  to  the  spirit  of  the  corps  : 

When  you've  'eard  your  city  caliin', 
W'y  you  won't  'eed  nothin'  else. 


THE   POWERS  OF  THE   PRESIDENT  ^ 

BY 

William  Howard  Taft 

To  every  American  the  exact  extent  and  the  exact  limitation  of  the 
powers  of  the  President  of  the  United  States  is  of  necessity  interesting. 
Still  more  interesting  does  it  become  when  the  subject  is  treated  by  one 
who  himself  has  been  President.  He  rightfully  speaks  with  authority. 
Consequently  the  first  paragraph  simply  states  the  question,  but  states 
is  in  a  very  personal  way.  There  are  six  Is  in  that  first  paragraph. 
The  succeeding  paragraphs  treat  each  function,  defining  and  limiting 
it.  Then  the  final  paragraph  returns  to  the  comparison  between  the 
king  of  England  and  the  President  with  which  the  essay  opened.  There- 
fore as  a  whole  the  structure  is  severely  simple.  The  development 
within  the  paragraph,  the  precision  of  phrase,  the  accuracy  of  definition, 
and  the  clarity  of  exposition,  make  it  a  model  of  legal  acuteness. 

It  has  been  said  that  the  President  of  the  United  States 
has  more  real  power  than  most  monarchs  of  Europe.  I 
do  not  know  that  I  am  able  to  institute  an  intelligent  com- 
parison, because  to  do  that  one  ought  to  be  quite  familiar 
with  the  extent  of  the  royal  or  imperial  power  to  be 
measured  with  that  of  our  President ;  and  I  have  not  suffi- 
cient knowledge  on  the  subject.  I  know  something  with 
respect  to  the  real  governing  power  of  the  King  of  England, 
and,  except  in  an  indirect  way,  the  President's  power  far 
exceeds  that  of  King  George ;  and  I  think  it  is  very  consid- 
erably more  than  that  of  the  President  of  France.     When, 

^  From  The  Yale  Review,  for  October,  1914,  by  permission  of  the 
author  and  of  the  editor  of  The  Vale  Review. 

152 


THE  POWERS  OF  THE  PRESIDENT         153 

however,  one  examines  the  imperial  power  in  governments 
like  Germany,  Austria,  Italy,  and  Spain,  the  question  is 
much  more  difficult ;  and  I  presume  no  one  would  say 
that  the  President's  power  was  equal  to  that  of  the  Czar 
of  Russia. 

With  us,  a  President  is  elected  for  four  years,  and  nothing 
can  get  him  out  of  office  except  his  death,  or  his  resigna- 
tion—  which  never  comes,  —  or  his  impeachment.  The 
certainty  of  his  tenure  for  four  years  makes  our  executive 
administration  a  little  more  rigid  and  less  subject  to  quick 
changes  of  public  opinion  than  in  the  parliamentary  coun- 
tries. I  am  inclined  to  think  that  our  system  is  a  good 
thing  for  our  country,  however  much  parliamentary 
government  may  suit  the  countries  where  it  is  in  use. 
Of  course,  it  has  this  disadvantage.  In  a  parliamentary 
government  there  is  a  union  between  the  executive  and 
the  legislative  branches,  and  they,  therefore,  work  to- 
gether, because  those  who  constitute  the  executive  lead 
and  direct  the  legislation ;  whereas  in  the  separation  of 
the  great  branches  of  the  government  with  us,  the  Presi- 
dent represents  the  executive.  Congress  the  legislative, 
and  the  courts  the  judicial  branch ;  and  the  plan  of  the 
men  who  framed  the  Constitution  was  to  preserve  these 
branches  separate.  The  President  is  able  to  recommend 
legislation  to  Congress,  and  he  may  go  in  person  to  argue 
the  wisdom  of  it  if  he  chooses.  Mr.  Wilson  has  restored  an 
old  custom  of  that  sort,  which  was  abandoned  by  President 
Jefferson,  and  I  think  he  was  right  in  doing  so.  It  em- 
phasizes his  recommendations  and  focusses  the  eyes  of 
the  people  on  that  which  he  regards  as  important  to  the 
public  welfare,  and  it  puts  a  greater  responsibility  on 
Congress  to  give  attention  to  his  suggestions. 

The  British  constitution  gives  the  power  of  veto  to  the 


154  MODERN  ESSAYS 

King ;  but  it  has  not  been  exercised  for  more  than  two 
centuries,  and  were  it  attempted,  it  would  shake  the 
throne.  The  exercise  of  the  President's  veto  always  rouses 
eloquence  on  the  part  of  those  who  are  much  disappointed 
at  the  defeat  of  the  measure,  and  the  walls  of  Congress 
not  infrequently  resound  with  denunciation  of  his  tyranni- 
cal exercise  of  a  kingly  prerogative.  But  the  fact  is  it  has 
come  to  be  a  more  frequent  characteristic  of  a  republic 
than  of  a  modern  monarchy.  For  a  king  or  an  emperor 
to  interpose  a  veto  to  an  Act  of  the  popular  legislature  is 
really  to  obstruct  the  people's  will,  because  he  was  not 
chosen  by  their  votes  but  inherited  his  royal  power.  He 
must,  indeed,  be  careful  in  exercising  a  veto  lest  he 
incur  a  protest  and  arouse  a  feeling  dangerous  to  his 
dynasty.  The  case  of  the  President  is  very  different. 
The  Constitution  established  by  the  people  requires  the 
President  to  withhold  his  signature  from  a  bill  if  he  dis- 
approve it,  and  return  it  with  his  objections  to  the 
House  in  which  it  originated.  For  the  President  is  quite 
as  much  the  representative  of  the  people  as  are  the  mem- 
bers of  the  two  Houses.  Indeed,  the  whole  people  of  the 
United  States  is  his  constituency,  and  he  therefore  speaks 
and  acts  for  them  quite  as  certainly  as  the  members  elected 
from  congressional  districts  or  the  Senators  from  the 
States.  He  is  not  exercising  a  kingly  power  in  a  veto. 
He  is  acting  in  a  representative  capacity  for  the  whole 
people,  and  is  preventing  a  law  that  he  thinks  would 
work  to  the  detriment  of  the  whole  country.  On  this 
account,  the  roar  of  the  young  lions  of  Congress  against  a 
veto  never  frightens  the  occupant  of  the  White  House. 
He  is  not  obstructing  popular  will ;  he  is  only  seeking  to 
express  it  in  his  veto,  as  he  has  the  duty  and  power  to 
do.     It  is  much  more  to  the  point  for  those  who  hurl 


THE  POWERS  OF  THE   PRESIDENT  155 

their  burning  words  into  the  Congressional  Record  to 
gather  votes  enough  to  pass  the  bill  over  the  veto.  If  they 
fail  in  this,  they  are  not  likely  to  disturb  anybody's  equa- 
nimity by  trying  to  establish  an  analogy  between  the  royal 
prerogative  and  a  power  given  the  President  by  the  people 
for  their  own  protection. 

Again,  the  President  is,  by  the  Constitution,  the  com- 
mander-in-chief of  the  army  and  navy.  That  gives  him 
the  constitutional  right  to  issue  orders  to  the  army  and 
navy  to  do  what  he  wishes  them  to  do  within  the  law  and 
the  restrictions  of  the  Constitution.  He  can  send  them 
to  any  place  in  the  country,  can  change  their  stations, 
can  mass  them  where  he  will,  and  he  can  call  upon  them 
to  help  him  in  the  execution  of  the  laws.  Ordinarily, 
of  course,  the  law  is  enforced,  so  far  as  the  United  States  is 
concerned,  by  the  civil  executive  officers,  like  United 
States  marshals,  post-office  employees,  collectors  of  in- 
ternal revenue  and  of  customs,  public  land  ofiicers,  and 
forestry  agents.  But  wherever  the  United  States  law  is 
resisted  by  violence,  wherever  the  decrees  of  a  United 
States  court  are  so  resisted,  and  the  court  calls  upon  the 
President  to  enforce  its  decree,  it  is  the  business  of  the 
President  to  see  that  this  is  done ;  and  if  his  United  States 
marshals  are  unable  to  do  it,  he  may  call  upon  the  army 
to  do  so.  In  the  Debs  strike,  or  "rebellion,"  as  it  w^as 
called,  when  an  association,  known  as  the  "American 
Railway  Union,"  sought  to  boycott  all  the  railways,  to 
prevent  by  violence  their  operation,  and  to  stop  the 
mail  cars  in  transportation  of  the  United  States  mail, 
the  federal  courts  issued  injunctions  against  the  leaders ; 
but  the  enforcement  of  these  was  forcibly  resisted.  Then 
President  Cleveland  called  out  the  army,  and  the  law  was 
enforced.     In  a  subsequent  case,  involving  the  validity 


156  MODERN  ESSAYS 

of  Mr.  Cleveland's  action,  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United 
States  fully  sustained  him. 

There  was  a  time  when  under  the  Constitution  the 
Republican  party  sought  to  make  possible  the  legitimate 
negro  vote  in  the  South,  and  elaborate  laws  were  passed, 
called  "force  laws,"  to  subject  congressional  elections  to 
the  supervision  of  United  States  election  officers,  and  the 
army  was  used  to  protect  them  in  the  discharge  of  their 
duty.  The  Democratic  party  came  into  power  with  a 
Republican  President,  Mr.  Hayes,  and  insisted  upon 
imposing  a  rider  upon  the  army  appropriation  bill,  for- 
bidding the  use  of  the  army  to  help  in  the  enforcement  of 
the  election  laws.  Mr.  Hayes  vetoed  the  army  appro- 
priation bill  because  it  contained  such  a  rider,  and  the 
army  went  without  money  for  one  year.  Subsequently, 
however,  it  was  passed.  The  question  never  arose  as  to 
whether  such  a  restriction  upon  the  executive  power  was 
valid.  I  think  it  was  not.  It  is  a  constitutional  duty  on 
the  part  of  the  President  to  execute  the  laws ;  and  as  long 
as  he  has  an  army,  and  the  Constitution  contemplates  his 
having  an  army  under  his  command,  he  cannot  be  deprived 
of  the  power  to  use  that  army  to  execute  all  the  laws. 

But  the  President's  constitutional  function  as  com- 
mander-in-chief of  the  army  and  navy  gives  him  a  very 
great  scope  in  the  exercise  of  much  wider  power  than 
merely  issuing  military  orders  to  generals  for  the  use  of 
troops.  The  President  was,  of  course,  commander-in- 
chief  in  the  Spanish  War,  and  as  such,  under  the  declara- 
tion of  war  that  Congress  made,  he  sent  troops  to  Cuba, 
and  subsequently  to  the  Philippines.  After  the  war  was 
over,  we  continued  in  occupation  of  Cuba,  Porto  Rico,  and 
the  Philippines ;  and  until  Congress  intervened  by  legis- 
lation, President  McKinley  carried  on  the  military  govern- 


h 


THE   POWERS  OF  THE   PRESIDENT  157 

ment  in  these  three  important  dependencies.  There  were 
a  million  people  in  Porto  Rico.  There  were  two  and  one- 
half  million  people  in  Cuba,  and  there  were  upwards  of 
eight  millions  in  the  Philippines ;  and  he  exercised  not  only 
executive  power  but  legislative  power  over  those  twelve 
millions  of  people.  His  executive  orders  were  law.  There 
were  some  restrictions  upon  the  character  of  laws  he  could 
make,  where  the  question  involved  the  customs  laws  of 
the  United  States ;  but  all  laws  that  had  force  in  the 
dependencies  themselves,  he  was  able  to  make  and  enforce. 
The  protocol  which  stopped  hostilities  in  the  Spanish  War 
was  signed  in  xVugust  of  1898,  and  the  Treaty  of  Paris  that 
ended  the  war  and  transferred  to  us  Porto  Rico,  the 
Philippines,  and  the  control  of  Cuba,  was  signed  late  in 
the  same  year.  From  that  time  on,  the  President  created 
courts,  enacted  criminal  and  civil  laws,  collected  taxes, 
and  administered  the  government  through  his  power  as 
commander-in-chief  of  the  army  and  the  navy,  and  he  did 
not  need  to  use  military  agents  to  accomplish  this  purpose. 
In  1900  he  sent  to  the  Philippines  a  Commission  of  five 
men  to  institute  a  government  in  the  islands.  It  was 
called  civil  government,  and  it  was  in  fact  civil  govern- 
ment, and  yet  it  was  established  under  his  military  power. 
At  first  he  retained  in  the  Philippines  a  military  governor, 
and  a  major-general  of  the  army  was  the  executive,  while 
the  Commission  enacted  such  civil  legislation  as  was 
needed  there  and  established  such  municipal  and  pro- 
vincial governments  as  the  condition  of  the  country 
permitted.  The  President,  through  the  Secretary  of  War, 
who  acted  for  him,  appointed  in  July,  1901,  a  civil  governor 
in  the  Philippines,  under  his  military  power.  That  civil 
governor  assumed  office  on  the  fourth  of  July,  1901,  and 
it  was  not  until  June,  1902,  nearly  four  years  after  we 


158  MODERN  ESSAYS 

acquired  possession  of  the  Philippines,  that  Congress 
took  a  hand  at  all.  It  was  a  very  wise  arrangement, 
because  through  the  ease  with  which  the  President  and  the 
Secretary  of  War  could  mould  the  government  to  suit 
the  conditions,  the  character  of  the  people,  and  the  exi- 
gencies of  the  campaign  to  tranquillize  the  islands,  by 
executive  orders  and  Acts  of  the  Commission,  a  govern- 
ment was  created  that  fitted  the  country  as  a  suit  would  be 
fitted  to  a  man  by  a  tailor.  And  then  after  it  was  all 
done,  after  the  work  was  seen  to  be  good,  Congress  took 
up  the  matter  and  confirmed  what  had  been  done,  and 
established  the  present  government  there,  on  the  exact 
lines  of  the  government  that  the  President  had  built  up 
under  his  power  as  commander-in-chief.  The  same  thing 
is  more  or  less  true  of  Cuba  and  Porto  Rico,  though  we 
did  not  retain  Cuba  but  turned  the  island  over  to  the 
Cubans,  in  accordance  with  our  promise  made  when  we 
began  the  war,  and  although  the  government  of  Porto 
Rico  was  not  fitted  to  the  necessities  of  Porto  Rico,  by 
experimental  administration,  as  fully  and  as  successfully 
as  in  the  case  of  the  Philippines.  The  second  interven- 
tion in  Cuba  in  1906  was  by  order  of  the  President,  with- 
out special  congressional  action  or  authority.  He  acted 
under  his  power  to  see  that  the  laws  are  executed,  and  by 
virtue  of  his  power  as  commander-in-chief  of  the  army 
and  navy. 

The  President  has  no  right  to  declare  war.  That  rests 
by  the  Constitution  with  Congress.  While  he  cannot 
declare  war,  he  can  direct  the  action  of  the  army  and  the 
navy,  and  so  he  could  direct  an  invasion  of  a  foreign 
country,  but  that  would  be  an  act  of  war  which  would 
necessarily  bring  on  war.  There  have  been  cases  where  the 
President  has  used  the  marine  force  and  landed  men  to 


THE  POWERS  OF  THE  PRESIDENT  159 

protect  American  property,  but  such  landing  is  not  to  be 
regarded  as  an  invasion.  Certainly  a  President  would 
violate  his  duty  if  he  directed  such  an  invasion  without 
the  consent  of  the  constituted  authority  in  a  foreign 
country,  and  thus  brought  on  war.  But  in  the  case  of 
Cuba  and  the  intervention  to  which  I  have  referred,  Cuba 
had  consented  in  the  treaty  which  she  made  with  the 
United  States,  and  had  provided  in  her  own  constitution 
that  the  United  States  might  intervene  at  its  discretion 
for  the  purpose  of  maintaining  law  and  order.  So  far 
as  the  President  was  concerned,  this  put  Cuba  within  the 
jurisdiction  of  the  United  States  to  that  extent,  and  so  it 
became  the  President's  duty  to  see  that  the  laws  were 
executed  in  Cuba,  without  receiving  special  congressional 
authority.  And  he  did  it  with  the  army  and  the  navy, 
because  he  was  their  commander-in-chief. 

Another  instance.  The  Canal  Zone  on  the  Isthmus  of 
Panama  is  a  territory  belonging  to  the  United  States, 
in  which  we  exercise  authority  equal  to  absolute  dominion. 
Congress  passed  a  law  authorizing  the  President  to  es- 
tablish a  government  there,  and  to  appoint  officers  to 
exercise  governmental  authority ;  but  the  law,  by  its 
own  terms,  expired  within  a  year  after  its  enactment. 
Meantime  we  were  on  the  Isthmus  building  the  canal . 
Congress  had  given  the  President  authority  to  build  the 
canal,  indeed  had  made  it  his  duty  to  do  so,  but  there  was 
absolutely  no  authority  expressly  given  to  him  to  continue 
a  government  after  the  expiration  of  the  law  to  which  I 
have  referred.  But  the  President  went  right  on  exercising 
the  same  authority  that  he  had  been  exercising ;  and  he 
did  so,  under  his  constitutional  authority  to  see  that  the 
laws  of  the  United  States  are  executed.  In  the  absence 
of  congressional  action,  when  there  is  a  piece  of  United 


160  MODERN   ESSAYS 

States  territory  without  a  government,  he  has  to  take 
charge  of  it,  and  govern  it  as  best  he  can.  Congress 
knows  the  conditions  and  does  not  act,  and  so  the  President 
is  compelled  to  do  so.  Judges  may  be  appointed,  hiws 
administered,  men  imprisoned  and  executed  for  crime,  and 
all  by  direction  of  the  executive  power. 

Another  power  of  the  President,  and  one  of  his  greatest 
powers,  is  expressed  in  a  very  innocent  and  simple  sen- 
tence:  "He  shall  receive  all  Ambassadors  and  public 
Ministers."  He  can  make  treaties,  but  he  cannot  do  that 
without  the  ratification,  or,  as  it  is  called  in  the  Constitu- 
tion, without  "the  advice  and  consent  of  the  Senate,"  by  a 
vote  of  two-thirds  of  those  present.  He  cannot  declare 
war,  because  that  is  a  power  that  Congress  exercises  under 
the  Constitution.  Except  for  these  specific  limitations, 
he  controls  entirely  our  international  relations.  In  the 
first  place,  no  treaty  can  be  made  unless  he  initiates  it. 
The  Senate  may  pass  a  resolution  suggesting  his  making  a 
treaty,  and  so  might  the  House,  and  so  might  Congress, 
but  he  is  not  obliged  to  follow  their  recommendation. 
All  our  intercourse,  except  the  formal  making  of  treaties 
with  foreign  countries,  is  carried  on  by  the  President 
through  the  State  Department.  Now  that  involves  the 
presentation  of  claims  and  complaints  by  our  citizens 
against  foreign  countries,  and  the  presentation  by  us  of 
petitions  for  all  sorts  of  action  by  foreign  governments. 
It  involves  a  correspondence  as  to  the  complaints  by 
foreign  citizens  or  subjects  against  our  government.  It 
involves  a  constant  reference  to  treaties  made  and  their 
construction  by  our  government,  which  construction  after 
a  while  practically  fixes  our  attitude.  The  President 
recognizes  foreign  governments.  Thus  we  see  in  Mexico, 
which  fell  into  a  state  of  revolution  and  almost  anarchy, 


THE  POWERS  OF  THE  PRESIDENT  161 

President  Wilson  declined  to  recognize  Huerta  as  provi- 
sional president.  He  had  the  right  to  do  so.  He  had 
the  right  to  recognize  him  if  he  chose ;  and  the  resulting 
crisis  made  it  evident  what  a  very  important  and  re- 
sponsible power  that  is. 

Take  the  case  of  the  fur  seals.  Congress  passed  a  law, 
punishing  anyone  who  resorted  to  pelagic  sealing  in  the 
Bering  Sea.  The  government  owned  the  Pribilof  Islands, 
upon  which  was  a  herd  of  seals.  The  destruction  of  the 
female  seals  out  at  sea  was  very  injurious  to  the  herd. 
That  was  the  occasion  for  the  enactment  of  the  congres- 
sional law  to  which  I  referred.  Now  under  the  construc- 
tion that  international  law  would  ordinarily  put  upon  such 
a  statute,  it  could  only  apply  to  sealing  within  three  miles 
of  United  States  land,  or  else  in  some  way  or  other  we 
would  have  to  establish  ownership  in  the  seals  themselves. 
Mr.  Blaine,  who  was  then  Secretary  of  State,  took  the 
position  that  the  grant  of  Alaska  to  the  United  States  in 
18G7  carried  with  it  dominion  over  the  Bering  Sea  for 
the  purpose  of  preserving  these  seals,  and  he  went  back 
into  the  records  to  show  that  Russia  had  claimed  such 
dominion  and  attempted  to  prove  that  it  had  been  ac- 
quiesced in  by  the  Powers.  Following  that  view,  the 
United  States  Court  of  Alaska  sustained  the  seizure  of 
certain  Canadian  fishing  vessels  that  had  been  caught  in 
pelagic  sealing  by  one  of  our  revenue  cutters,  forfeited 
them  under  the  congressional  Act  and  sold  them.  The 
British  government,  through  Canadian  agents,  brought  a 
suit  in  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States  to  secure  a 
writ  of  prohibition  against  the  Alaska  court  to  prevent  that 
court  from  carrying  out  its  decree,  on  the  ground  that  there 
was  no  jurisdiction  over  the  Bering  Sea  which  Congress 
could  assert  or  which  the  President  could  maintain.     The 

M 


162  MODERN  ESSAYS 

Supreme  Court  dismissed  the  application,  on  the  main 
ground  that  the  question  of  the  dominion  of  the  United 
States  was  a  poHtical  question,  to  be  determined  by  the 
President  or  Congress ;  and  because  the  President  had 
asserted  the  claim  through  the  Secretary  of  State  that  we 
had  dominion  over  the  Alaskan  waters  beyond  the  three- 
mile  limit,  the  court  would  be  bound  by  it.  Then  we 
had  an  international  arbitration  in  which  the  court  con- 
sidered the  question  and  held  that  the  Secretary  of  State 
was  wrong.  For  the  purposes  of  my  present  discussion, 
it  is  a  good  illustration  of  the  very  great  power  that  the 
President  can  exercise  in  his  control  over  foreign  relations. 
By  the  Constitution,  the  President  has  the  right  to 
appoint  all  ambassadors,  ministers,  consuls,  and  judges 
of  the  Supreme  Court,  subject  to  confirmation  by  the 
Senate  of  the  United  States.  Congress  may  place  the 
appointment  of  all  other  officers,  with  the  consent  of  the 
Senate,  in  the  President  alone,  or  in  the  heads  of  depart- 
ments, or  in  the  courts.  Practically,  the  general  power  of 
appointment  of  all  officers,  except  very  inferior  and  unim- 
portant officers,  is  in  the  President,  and  generally  confir- 
mation is  required  by  the  Senate.  This,  of  course,  is  a 
great  power.  It  is  a  power,  so  far  as  the  great  offices 
are  concerned,  that  the  President  must  have  in  order  that 
he  may  have  his  policies  carried  out.  That  is,  he  must 
appoint  his  Cabinet,  because,  as  the  Supreme  Court  has 
said,  they  are  the  fingers  of  his  hand,  and  they  must  do 
his  will  and  exercise  his  discretion.  Therefore,  if  there 
is  to  be  uniformity,  if  there  is  to  be  consistency,  if  there 
is  to  be  solidarity  of  movement  and  force  in  the  executive 
branches  of  the  government,  the  President  must  appoint 
the  men  who  act  at  the  heads  of  departments  and  form  his 
Cabinet. 


THE  POWERS  OF  THE  PRESIDENT         163 

In  respect  to  all  the  other  executive  offices,  however,  a 
different  rule  should  obtain.  With  the  exception  of  the 
judges  of  the  courts,  of  the  ambassadors  and  ministers,  of 
the  members  of  his  Cabinet,  and  the  appointment  of  the 
general  officers  of  the  army,  I  think  that  the  action  of  the 
President  ought  practically  to  be  nothing  more  than  a 
formal  acquiescence  in  a  system  which  prevails  in  other 
well-governed  countries,  by  which  the  selection  and  pro- 
motion of  all  officers  is  by  examination,  and  their  tenure 
is  for  life.  The  President  should  not  be  bothered,  as  he 
is  now,  with  having  to  exercise  an  arbitrary  discretion 
enabling  him,  if  he  choose,  to  use  the  offices  for  political 
purposes,  and  involving  him  in  controversies  that  interfere 
with  his  effectiveness  as  the  chief  executive  officer  of  the 
nation  and  do  not  help  the  public  weal.  It  is  entirely 
possible  to  put  all  these  offices,  except  the  ones  I  have 
named,  under  the  system  called  the  classified  civil  service. 
If  popular  government  is  to  be  a  success,  the  success  will 
be  measured  by  the  ability  of  the  government  to  use  the 
services  of  experts  in  carrying  it  on.  The  selection  of 
other  than  the  highest  officers  on  political  grounds  will 
not  result  in  the  use  of  experts  to  carry  on  the  various 
functions  that  the  government  performs. 

We  are  acquiescing  now,  all  of  us,  in  the  view  that  the 
government  can  accomplish  and  ought  to  accomplish  much 
more  benefit  for  the  people  than  Mr.  Jefferson  and  his 
school  of  political  thinkers  admitted.  Mr.  Jefferson 
contended  that  the  least  government  was  the  best  govern- 
ment ;  that  the  function  of  government  should  be  confined, 
as  nearly  as  possible,  to  the  administration  of  justice 
through  the  courts,  and  the  maintenance  of  law  and  order 
through  the  police.  But  we  now  take  a  different  view, 
and  hold  that  there  are  many  things  the  government  can 


164  MODERN   ESSAYS 

do  well  and  better  than  private  contractors.  For  instance, 
we  have  always  run  the  post  office,  and  now  we  run  the 
parcels  post.  We  have  built  the  Panama  Canal ;  and  the 
state  governments  are  discharging  many  functions  that  it 
was  formerly  thought  would  be  better  performed  by  pri- 
vate agency.  But  such  functions  for  their  successful  per- 
formance require  the  highest  experts.  If  we  are  to  change 
such  officers  every  four  years  with  the  political  complexion 
of  the  administration,  then  we  lose  the  benefit  of  experi- 
ence, we  lose  the  benefit  of  the  disinterested  devotion  to 
the  public  service  that  a  life-tenure  brings  about,  and  we 
take  away  from  the  public  service  its  attractiveness  for 
the  many  whose  service  would  be  valuable,  but  who  because 
of  the  uncertainty  of  tenure  in  the  government  service 
decline  to  accept  positions  of  responsibility  in  it.  I  speak 
whereof  I  know  when  I  say  it  injures  the  dignity  and  the 
usefulness  of  a  President  to  be  bothered  about  the  preference 
to  be  given  to  candidates  for  post  offices,  for  collectors  of 
customs,  collectors  of  internal  revenue  all  over  this  country. 
Under  the  present  law,  the  Senate  is  required  to  confirm 
them.  That  necessity  gives  to  the  Senators  an  oppor- 
tunity to  use  duress,  for  that  is  what  it  amounts  to,  upon 
the  President  to  establish  a  custom  by  which  he  shall 
consult  their  political  views  as  to  who  shall  be  appointed 
to  those  local  offices. 

The  office  of  President  is  one  of  the  greatest  responsi- 
bility. No  one  knows  the  burden  he  has  to  carry  in  the 
Presidency  until  he  has  laid  it  down  and  realizes  the  ex- 
haustion of  his  mental  and  nervous  energy  which  un- 
consciously was  going  on  while  he  attempted  to  discharge 
his  duties.  One  of  the  most  aggravating  features  of 
his  present  duties  is  this  constant  attention  that  he  has 
to  pay  to  the  visits  of  Congressmen  and  Senators  in  regard 


THE   POWERS  OF   THE   PRESIDENT  165 

to  the  local  patronage.  He  ought  not  to  have  to  do  with 
such  offices  at  all.  Thus  far  the  Senate  has  not  been 
willing  to  give  up  its  power  in  this  regard.  While  I  was 
in  the  White  House  I  recommended  it  every  year.  I 
believe  it  is  coming.  We  have  made  great  progress  in 
this  matter.  We  have  now  a  civil  service  law  that  covers 
many  of  the  inferior  offices,  but  what  we  ought  to  have 
is  a  permanent  machinery  of  the  government  reaching  up 
to  include  the  assistant  secretaries  in  the  various  depart- 
ments. It  will  make  for  efficiency ;  it  w^ill  make  for 
economy ;  it  will  make  for  saving  of  the  time  and  energy 
of  the  President  and  Senators  and  Congressmen.  It  will 
take  away  opportunities  for  political  machines ;  it  will 
tend  towards  purity  in  politics  and  effectiveness  of  govern- 
ment ;  and,  therefore,  it  will  make  for  the  weal  of  the 
people  of  the  United  States ;  and  it  can  all  be  accomplished 
by  an  Act  of  Congress,  and  a  President  who  will  approve 
the  Act  and  carry  out  its  spirit.  It  is  coming.  The 
Lord  is  on  that  side,  but  sometimes  He  moves  more 
slowly  than  we  impatient  mortals  think  necessary. 

The  other  great  power  which  the  President  has,  in 
addition  to  being  commander-in-chief  of  the  army  and 
navy,  conducting  the  foreign  relations  of  the  government, 
making  treaties  and  declaring  war,  and  the  power  of 
appointment  and  the  power  to  see  the  law  executed,  is  in 
the  granting  of  reprieves  and  pardons  to  those  suffering 
punishment  for  violating  laws  of  the  United  States.  This 
is  a  very  wide  power.  The  President  may  exercise  it 
after  a  crime  is  committed  and  before  any  trial  begins; 
may  exercise  it  before  the  man  is  arrested ;  may  issue  an 
amnesty  —  that  is,  a  pardon  of  a  number  of  people  by 
a  class  description.  The  power  of  pardon  in  States 
has   been    greatly    abused    by    some    governors,    but    I 


166  MODERN  ESSAYS 

never  heard  that  any  President  had  called  down  on 
himself  just  criticism  for  his  use  of  this  great  and  merci- 
ful instrument.  In  the  exercise  of  the  pardoning  power, 
there  is  no  certain  line  to  guide  the  executive  to  a  safe 
conclusion.  He  has  to  balance  in  his  mind  the  considera- 
tions for  which  punishment  is  provided.  The  aim  of 
punishment  of  a  criminal  is,  first,  to  furnish  an  example 
to  induce  others  who  are  about  to  commit  similar  crimes 
to  avoid  them ;  second,  to  reform  the  criminal,  if  possible, 
that  is,  to  chasten  him  and  then  treat  him  in  such  a  way 
as  to  bring  him  back  into  the  law-abiding  classes  of  the 
community.  If  one  takes  up  an  individual  case  there  are 
always  circumstances  that  suggest,  and  appeal  for,  mercy 
because  it  happens  so  frequently  that  the  imprisonment 
of  the  criminal  inflicts  a  heavier  punishment  on  those  who 
are  related  to  him  by  blood  or  kinship,  than  upon  himself, 
and  the  pardoning  power  is  deeply  moved  to  save  them 
from  undeserved  suffering.  But  the  interests  of  society 
require  that  such  a  consideration  should  be  rejected  in 
order  that  the  example  of  punishment  may  be  effective 
and  persuasive.  It  is  a  most  dangerous  power  to  entrust 
to  the  executive  with  a  big  heart  and  a  little  head,  or  a  man 
with  a  big  heart  and  very  little  power  over  his  feelings. 
By  such  governors,  criminals  will  be  let  loose  on  society 
and  the  whole  effort  of  those  who  are  conducting  the 
machinery  of  assistance  will  be  paralyzed.  One  never 
knows  until  he  has  been  in  the  Presidency  the  amount  of 
pressure  that  is  brought  in  one  way  and  another  to  stay 
the  prosecutions  and  to  pardon  criminals.  I  had  two 
cases  once  before  me,  in  which  it  was  represented  to  me 
that  both  the  convicts  were  near  death,  and  I  instituted 
an  investigation  to  find  out  the  truth  through  the  Army 
Medical  Corps.     Examinations  were  made,  watches  were 


THE   POWERS   OF  THE   PRESIDENT  167 

established  over  the  sick  men,  and  it  was  reported  to  me 
that  they  were  both  in  the  last  stages  of  a  fatal  disease. 
One  of  them  died  soon  after  he  was  released  from  the  peni- 
tentiary. The  other  is  apparently  in  excellent  health 
and  seeking  to  reestablish  himself  in  the  field  in  which 
he  committed  a  penitentiary  offense.  This  shakes  one's 
faith  in  expert  examinations.  Then  there  are  many  appli- 
cations in  advance  of  prosecutions  to  prevent  indictments 
and  prevent  trials.  The  influences  brought  are  insidious, 
and  usually  the  very  fact  of  seeking  such  influences  is  an 
indication  that  the  person  charged  is  guilty. 

I  have  referred  to  the  duty  and  the  power  of  the  Presi- 
dent to  see  that  the  laws  are  executed.  This  is  stated  in 
the  Constitution,  but  it  involves  considerably  more  than 
seeing  that  the  letter  of  the  law  is  carried  out.  It  involves 
the  construction  of  the  law  by  the  President  and  his  sub- 
ordinates, because  he  cannot  execute  it  until  he  finds  out 
what  it  means,  and  frequently  laws  are  very  blind  and  the 
interpretation  of  the  law  covers  so  much  that  it  involves 
the  exercise  of  an  important  function.  Of  course,  courts 
in  litigated  cases  are  called  upon  to  consider  laws,  but  there 
are  many  laws  of  the  national  government  that  can  never 
be  brought  before  courts  of  law  —  acts  of  appropriation, 
for  instance,  as  to  what  the  appropriation  includes  and 
how  to  be  expended.  These  questions  are  settled  by  the 
Attorney-General,  by  the  Comptroller  of  the  Currency, 
appointees  of  the  President,  and  sometimes  by  the  Presi- 
dent himself.  Then  there  are  a  great  many  projects  to 
be  carried  out  by  the  government,  and  Congress  naturally 
vests  the  control  of  them  in  the  President.  That  is 
what  it  did  in  the  case  of  the  Panama  Canal.  The  Spooner 
Act  in  1902  directed  the  President  to  construct  the 
canal.     It  required  him  to  do  it  through  a  commission, 


168  MODERN   ESSAYS 

but  the  commission  was  subject  to  his  appointment  and 
removal. 

However,  "money  makes  the  mare  go."  You  cannot 
have  a  government  unless  you  have  a  treasury  full  of 
funds  with  which  to  run  it,  and  all  these  executive  func- 
tions of  the  President  are  to  be  performed  by  agents  who 
must  be  paid  in  order  that  they  shall  serve.  In  other 
words,  while  these  powers  that  I  have  pointed  out  are 
very  broad,  Congress  retains  very  great  restraining  power 
in  that  clause  of  the  Constitution  which  provides  that  no 
money  shall  be  paid  out  of  the  Treasury  except  upon 
appropriation  of  Congress ;  and  if  the  President  is  left 
without  money,  he  is  well-nigh  helpless.  By  refusal 
to  vote  supply  bills,  the  Commons  of  England  brought  the 
Stuarts  and  kings  before  them  to  a  realization  of  the 
power  of  the  people,  and  this  same  power  still  exists  in 
our  Congress  to  restrain  any  executive  who  may  seek  to 
exceed  his  constitutional  limitations. 

Of  course,  I  am  speaking  now  of  the  legal  powers  of  the 
President.  I  am  not  speaking  of  those  powers  that  natur- 
ally come  to  him  through  our  political  system,  and  because 
he  is  the  head  of  the  party.  He  can  thus  actually  exercise 
very  considerable  influence,  sometimes  a  controlling  in- 
fluence, in  the  securing  of  legislation  by  his  personal  inter- 
vention with  the  members  of  his  party  who  are  in  control 
in  each  House.  I  think  he  ought  to  have  very  great  in- 
fluence, because  he  is  made  responsible  to  the  people  for 
what  the  party  does ;  and  if  the  party  is  wise,  it  will  bend 
to  his  leadership  as  long  as  it  is  tolerable,  and  especially 
where  it  is  in  performance  of  promises  that  the  party  has 
made  in  its  platform  and  on  the  faith  of  which  it  must  be 
assumed  to  have  obtained  its  power.  But  such  power  as 
he  exercises  in  this  way  is  not  within  the  letter  of  the  law 


THE  POWERS  OF  THE  PRESIDENT         169 

and  probably  does  not  come  within  the  legitimate  bounds 
of  such  an  article  as  this. 

The  functions  of  the  President  which  I  have  enumerated 
seem  very  broad ;  but  when  many  speak  of  the  enormous 
power  of  a  President,  they  have  in  mind  that  what  the 
President  does  goes  like  kissing,  by  favor.  Now  the 
Presidency  offers  but  few  opportunities  for  discretion  of 
that  sort.  The  responsibility  of  the  office  is  so  heavy, 
the  earnest  desire  of  every  man  who  fills  the  place  to  de- 
serve the  approval  of  his  countrymen  by  doing  the  thing 
that  is  best  for  the  country  so  strong,  and  the  fear  of  just 
popular  criticism  so  controlling,  that  it  is  difiicult  for  one 
who  has  been  brought  through  four  years  of  it  to  remember 
any  personal  favor  that  he  was  able  to  confer.  There  are 
certain  political  obligations  that  the  custom  of  a  party 
requires  the  President  to  discharge  on  the  recommenda- 
tion of  Senators  and  Congressmen,  and  of  the  men  who  have 
had  the  conduct  of  the  political  campaign  in  which  he 
was  successful.  I  think,  as  I  have  already  said,  that  this 
kind  of  obligation  should  be  reduced  to  its  lowest  terms  by 
a  change  of  the  law,  and  that  the  custom  which  has  been 
maintained  since  the  beginning  of  government,  and  which 
has  not  been  in  the  interest  of  good  government,  ought 
to  be  minimized  to  a  point  where  it  will  cease  to  be  harm- 
ful. But  I  refer  now  to  that  kind  of  power  that  imagina- 
tion clothes  the  President  and  all  rulers  with,  to  gratify 
one  man  and  humiliate  another  and  punish  a  third,  in  order 
to  satisfy  the  whim  or  the  vengeance  of  the  man  in  power. 
That  does  not  exist,  and  the  truth  is  that  great  as  these 
powers  are,  when  a  President  comes  to  exercise  them,  he 
is  much  more  concerned  with  the  limitations  upon  them 
to  see  that  he  does  not  exceed  them,  than  he  is  affected 
by  personal  gratification  over  the  big  things  he  can  do. 


170  MODERN   ESSAYS 

The  President  is  given  $25,000  a  year  for  travelling 
expenses ;  and  this  enables  him  to  travel  in  a  private  car, 
and  it  is  wise  that  it  should  be  so.  Were  he  to  travel  in  a 
Pullman  car,  where  the  public  could  approach  him,  the 
ordinarily  commendable  curiosity  of  the  American  people 
to  see  their  President  close  at  hand  would  subject  to  such 
annoyances  both  him  and  the  travelling  public  with  whom 
he  might  happen  to  be  that  both  he  and  they  would  be 
made  most  uncomfortable.  There  is  an  impression  that 
the  President  cannot  leave  the  country  and  that  the  law 
forbids.  This  is  not  true.  The  only  provision  of  law 
which  bears  on  the  subject  at  all  is  that  which  provides 
that  the  Vice-President  shall  take  his  place  when  the 
President  is  disabled  from  performing  his  duties.  Now  if 
he  is  out  of  the  country  at  a  point  where  he  cannot  dis- 
charge the  necessary  functions  that  are  imposed  on  him, 
such  disability  might  arise ;  but  the  communication  by 
telegraph,  wireless,  and  telephone  are  now  so  good  that 
it  would  be  difficult  for  a  President  to  go  anywhere  and 
not  be  able  to  keep  his  subordinates  in  constant  informa- 
tion as  to  his  whereabouts  and  his  wishes.  As  a  matter 
of  fact.  Presidents  do  not  leave  the  country  very  often. 
Occasionally  it  seems  in  the  public  interest  that  they 
should.  President  Roosevelt  visited  the  Canal  Zone  for 
the  purpose  of  seeing  what  work  was  being  done  on  the 
canal  and  giving  zest  to  that  work  by  personal  contact 
with  those  who  were  engaged  in  it.  I  did  the  same  thing 
later  on,  travelling,  as  he  did,  on  the  deck  of  a  government 
vessel  which  is  technically  the  soil  of  the  United  States. 
The  Zone  is  the  soil  of  the  United  States.  He  was  not 
out  of  the  jurisdiction  of  the  United  States  except  for  a 
few  hours.  He  went  into  the  city  of  Panama,  as  I  did, 
and  dined  with  the  President  of  the  Panamanian  Republic. 


THE   POWERS  OF  THE   PRESIDENT  171 

So,  too,  I  dined  with  President  Diaz  at  Juarez,  in  Mexico, 
just  across  the  border  from  El  Paso,  but  nobody  was 
heard  to  say  that  in  any  of  these  visits  we  had  disabled 
ourselves  from  performing  our  constitutional  and  statutory 
functions. 

The  assassination  of  three  Presidents  has  led  Congress 
to  provide  that  the  chief  of  the  Secret  Service  shall  furnish 
protection  to  the  President  as  he  moves  about,  either  in 
Washington  or  in  the  country  at  large.  I  presume  that 
experience  shows  this  to  be  necessary.  While  President,  I 
never  was  conscious  of  any  personal  anxiety  while  in  large 
crowds,  and  I  have  been  in  many  of  them.  Yet  the  record 
of  assaults  upon  Presidents  is  such  that  Congress  would 
be  quite  derelict  if  it  disregarded  it.  The  necessary  pre- 
cautions are  a  great  burden  on  the  President.  He  never 
can  go  anywhere  that  he  does  not  have  to  inflict  upon 
those  whom  he  wishes  to  see  the  burden  of  the  presence  of 
a  body  guard,  and  it  is  a  little  difficult  to  get  away  from 
the  feeling  that  one  is  under  surveillance  himself  rather 
than  being  protected  from  somebody  else.  The  Civil 
Service  men  are  level-headed,  experienced,  and  of  good 
manners,  and  they  are  wise  in  their  methods  and  most 
expert  in  detecting  those  from  whom  danger  is  most 
to  be  expected.  I  mean  the  partially  demented  and 
"cranks."  If  a  person  is  determined  to  kill  a  President 
and  is  willing  to  give  up  his  life  for  it,  no  such  protection 
will  save  his  victim.  But  such  persons  are  very  rare. 
The  worst  danger  is  from  those  who  have  lost  part  or  all 
of  their  reason,  and  whom  the  presence  of  a  President 
in  the  community  excites.  I  may  be  mistaken,  but  it 
seems  to  me  that  with  the  experts  that  we  now  have  and 
the  system  that  is  now  pursued,  the  assassination  of  Presi- 
dent   McKinley    at    Buffalo    might    j^ossibly    have   been 


172  MODERN  ESSAYS 

avoided.  The  presence  of  the  assassin  with  a  revolver 
under  his  handkerchief  would  now  be  detected  long 
before  he  could  get  within  range  of  the  object  of  his  per- 
verted purpose. 

The  President  is  in  office  for  only  four  years  or  at  most 
eight,  and  the  social  influence  that  he  and  his  family 
can  exercise  is  quite  limited.  It  is  sufficient  for  our 
democratic  purposes ;  but  it  does  not  compare  with  the 
social  influence  that  is  exercised  by  the  head  of  the  state 
in  a  country  like  Great  Britain.  The  truth  is  that  the 
chief  and  almost  the  only  power  that  the  King  of  Britain 
has,  except  in  an  advisory  way,  is  as  the  social  head  of  the 
kingdom.  The  moral  influence  that  he  exercises  over  his 
court  may  thus  be  made  strong.  It  always  permeates  to 
those  who  do  not  come  directly  within  the  court  circles. 
There  is,  too,  a  political  influence  that  the  King  and  the 
royal  family  can  exert  in  this  way,  not  affirmative  and 
direct,  but  conserving,  softening,  and  conciliatory,  alle- 
viating party  bitterness  and  moderating  extreme  views. 
The  ancient  and  still  living  respect  for  royalty  is  strong 
in  itself  to  discourage  violent  methods,  to  compel  good 
manners.  In  this  respect,  of  course,  because  the  King  is 
permanent  during  his  life  and  the  members  of  the  royal 
family  likewise,  this  social  rule  is  vastly  stronger  than 
that  of  the  President.  But  in  every  other  respect  as  be- 
tween the  King  of  England  and  the  President  of  the  United 
States,  the  President  really  rules  within  the  limit  of  the 
functions  entrusted  to  him  by  the  Constitution,  while  the 
King  has  lost  much  of  his  former  power  in  the  progress  of 
democracy  to  complete  control  in  Great  Britain,  and 
merely  reigns  as  the  titular  and  social  head  of  the  state. 


JOHN   GREENLEAF  WHITTIER  ^ 

BY 

George  Edward  Woodberry 

The  death  of  Whittier  in  1889  furnished  the  occasion  for  Professor 
Woodberry's  essay.  It  opens  logically  with  two  paragraphs  giving  the 
immediate  reason  for  writing ;  although  Whittier  was  local  to  New  Eng- 
land, he  is  really  national  so  far  as  the  spirit  of  New  England  has  passed 
into  the  nation  at  large ;  and,  the  New  England  of  Whittier  has  become 
historical.  The  next  paragraph  defines  the  subject,  that  Whittier  will 
be  treated  as  a  poet.  The  following  paragraphs,  therefore,  take  up  in 
succession  various  phases  and  characteristics  of  his  poetic  activity. 
The  whole  is  bound  together  by  the  concluding  thought,  that  among  the 
honored  names  of  the  New  England  past  his  place  is  secure.  There  is 
no  biographical  introduction,  and  there  is  little  more  than  an  occasional 
trenchant  sentence  of  biographical  detail.  The  assumption  is  made  that 
the  reader  is  both  familiar  with  the  subject  and  already  sufficiently  in- 
terested in  it  to  desire  a  succinct  presentation  of  literary  judgment 
free  from  the  introduction  of  irrelevant  detail.  Thus  this  is  a  good 
example  of  a  clean-cut  critical  essay.  On  the  other  hand,  there  is  no 
appeal  to  the  casual  reader. 

The  time  has  come  to  pay  tribute  of  farewell  upon  the 
occasion  of  the  death  of  Whittier.  The  popular  instinct 
which  long  ago  adopted  him  as  the  poet  of  New  England 
is  one  of  those  sure  arbiters,  superior  to  all  academic 
judgments  upon  the  literary  works  of  a  man,  which  con- 
fer a  rightful  fame  in  life,  and  justify  the  expectation 
of  a  long  remembrance.     Whittier  was  distinctly  a  local 

'From  "Makers  of  Literature,"  by  permission  of  The  Macmillan 
Co. 

173 


174  MODERN  ESSAYS 

poet,  a  New  Englander ;  but  to  acknowledge  this  does  not 
diminish  his  honor,  nor  is  he  thereby  set  in  a  secondary 
place.  His  locality,  if  one  may  use  the  expression,  was  a 
country  by  itself ;  its  inhabitants  were  a  peculiar  people, 
with  a  strongly  marked  social  and  moral  character,  with  a 
landscape  and  an  atmosphere,  with  historical  traditions, 
legends  often  romantic,  and  with  strong  vitalizing  ideas. 
There  was  something  more  than  a  literary  fancy  in  the 
naturalness  with  which  Whittier  sought  a  kind  of  fellow- 
ship with  Burns ;  there  was  a  true  resemblance  in  their 
situation  as  the  poets  of  their  own  kin  and  soil,  in  their 
reliance  upon  the  strength  of  the  people  of  whom  they  were 
born,  and  in  their  cherished  attachment  to  the  places  and 
scenes  where  they  grew.  New  England,  moreover,  had 
this  advantage,  that  it  was  destined  to  set  the  stamp  of  its 
character  upon  the  larger  nation  in  which  it  was  an  ele- 
ment ;  so  that  if  Whittier  be  regarded,  as  he  sometimes  is, 
as  a  representative  American  poet,  it  is  not  without  justice. 
He  is  really  national  so  far  as  the  spirit  of  New  England 
has  passed  into  the  nation  at  large ;  and  that  vast  body  of 
Western  settlers  who  bore  New  England  to  the  frontier, 
and  yet  look  back  to  the  old  homestead,  find  in  him  the 
sentiment  of  their  past.  There  can  be  little  question, 
too,  that  he  is  representative  of  a  far  larger  portion  of  the 
American  people  than  any  other  of  the  elder  poets.  His 
lack  of  the  culture  of  the  schools  has  here  been  in  his 
favor,  and  has  brought  him  closer  to  the  common  life ; 
he  is  more  democratic  than  he  otherwise  might  have  been ; 
and  the  people,  recognizing  in  him  their  own  strain,  have 
accepted  him  with  a  judgment  as  valid  as  that  with  which 
cultivated  critics  accept  the  work  of  the  man  of  genius 
who  is  also  an  artist.  One  calls  him  a  local  poet  rather 
to  define  his  qualities  than  to  characterize  his  range. 


JOHN   GREENLEAF  WHITTIER  175 

The  New  England  which  Whittier  represents  has  now 
become  historical.  The  length  of  his  life  carried  him 
beyond  his  times.  It  is  plainer  now  than  it  was  at  an 
earlier  day  that  his  poems  are  one  of  the  living  records 
of  a  past  which  will  be  of  perennial  interest  and  ever 
held  in  honor.  That  his  early  poetic  career  fell  in  with 
the  anti-slavery  movement  was  not  a  misfortune  for  his 
Muse ;  the  man  fed  upon  it,  and  drew  therefrom  an  iron 
strength  for  the  moral  nature  which  was  the  better  half 
of  his  endowment.  He  was,  too,  one  who  was  destined 
to  develop,  to  reach  his  powers,  more  by  exercising  than  by 
cultivating  his  poetic  gift ;  and  in  the  events  of  the  agita- 
tion for  the  abolition  of  slavery  he  had  subjects  that  drew 
out  his  moral  emotions  with  most  eloquent  heat,  and 
exalted  his  spirit  to  its  utmost  of  sympathy,  indignation, 
and  heroic  trust.  The  anti-slavery  movement  was  his 
education,  —  in  a  true  sense,  the  gymnastic  of  his  genius ; 
but  in  the  whole  body  of  his  work  it  was  no  more  than 
an  incident,  although  the  most  stirring  and  most  noble, 
in  his  literary  career,  just  as  it  was  no  more  in  the  career 
of  New  England. 

The  great  events  with  which  a  man  deals,  and  part  of 
which  he  is,  obscure  the  other  portions  of  his  life ;  but  it 
should  not  be  forgotten  that  Whittier  began  as  a  poet,  and 
not  as  a  reformer,  and  it  may  be  added  that  the  poet  in 
him  was,  in  the  long  run,  more  than  the  reformer.  He  did 
not  resort  to  verse  as  an  expedient  in  propagandism ; 
rather,  wearing  the  laurel,  —  to  use  the  good  old  phrase,  — 
he  descended  into  the  field  just  as  he  was.  He  had  begun 
with  those  old  Indian  legends  in  lines  which  still  echoed 
with  Byron's  tales,  and  he  had  with  them  much  the  same 
success  that  attended  other  aboriginal  poetry.  It  seems, 
as  one  reads  the  hundred  weary  epics,  from  which  Whit- 


176  MODERN  ESSAYS 

tier's  are  hardly  to  be  distinguished,  that  the  curse  of  ex- 
tinction resting  on  the  doomed  race  clung  also  to  the  Muse 
that  so  vainly  attempted  to  recompense  it  with  immortality 
in  the  white  man's  verse.  These  were  Whittier's  juvenile 
trials.  lie  came  early,  nevertheless,  to  his  mature  form 
in  the  ballad  and  the  occasional  piece ;  his  versification 
was  fixed,  his  manner  determined,  and  thenceforth  there 
was  no  radical  change. 

This  is  less  remarkable  inasmuch  as  it  is  a  commonplace 
to  say  that  he  owed  nothing  to  art ;  the  strength  of  his 
native  genius  was  all  his  secret,  and  when  he  had  freed 
a  way  for  its  expression  the  task  of  his  novitiate  was  done. 
He  had  now  a  mould  in  which  to  run  his  metal,  and  it  satis- 
fied him  because  he  was  not  exacting  of  perfect  form  or 
high  finish  ;  probably  he  had  no  sense  for  them.  Tliis  in- 
difference to  the  artistic  workmanship,  which  a  later  day 
prizes  so  much  as  to  require  it,  allowed  him  to  indulge 
his  natural  facility,  and  the  very  simplicity  of  his  metres 
was  in  itself  a  temptation  to  difluseness.  The  conse- 
quence w'as  that  he  wrote  much,  and  not  always  well, 
unevenness  being  usually  characteristic  of  poets  who  rely 
on  the  energy  of  their  genius  for  the  excellence  of  their 
work.  To  the  artist  his  art  serves  often  as  a  conscience, 
and  forces  him  to  a  standard  below  which  he  is  not  content 
to  fall.  Whittier,  however,  experienced  the  compensa- 
tions which  are  everywhere  to  be  found  in  life,  and  gained 
in  fullness,  perhaps,  more  than  he  lost  in  other  ways. 
The  free  flow  of  his  thought,  tlie  simplicity  of  his  structure, 
the  willingness  not  to  select  with  too  nice  a  sense,  but  to 
tell  the  whole,  all  helped  to  that  frankness  of  the  man 
which  is  the  great  charm  of  his  w^orks,  taken  together, 
and  assisted  him  in  making  his  expression  of  old  New 
England    life    complete.     No    man    could    have    w'ritten 


JOHN   GREENLEAF  WIIITTIER  177 

Snow-Bound  who  remembered  Theocritus.  In  Whittier, 
Nature  reminds  us,  as  she  is  wont  to  do  from  time  to  time, 
that  the  die  which  she  casts  exceeds  the  diploma  of  the 
schooL  Art  may  lift  an  inferior  talent  to  higher  estima- 
tion, but  genius  makes  a  very  little  art  go  a  long  way. 
This  was  Whittier's  case.  The  poetic  spark  was  inborn  in 
him,  living  in  his  life ;  and  when  academic  criticism  has 
said  its  last  word,  he  remains  a  poet,  removed  by  a  broad 
and  not  doubtful  line  from  all  stringers  of  couplets  and 
filers  of  verses. 

Whittier  had,  in  addition  to  this  clear  native  genius, 
character ;  his  subject,  too.  New  England,  had  character ; 
and  the  worth  of  the  man  blending  with  the  worth  of  the 
life  he  portrayed,  independent  of  all  considerations  of  art, 
has  won  for  him  the  admiration  and  affection  of  the  com- 
mon people,  who  know  the  substance  of  virtue,  and  always 
see  it  shining  with  its  own  light.  They  felt  that  Whittier 
wrote  as  they  would  have  written,  had  they  been  gifted 
with  the  miraculous  tongues ;  and  this  feeling  is  a  true 
criterion  to  discover  whether  a  poet  has  expressed  the 
people  rather  than  himself.  They  might  choose  to  write 
like  the  great  artists  of  letters ;  they  know  they  never 
could  do  so ;   but  Whittier  is  one  of  themselves. 

The  secret  of  his  vogue  with  the  plain  people  is  his  own 
plainness.  He  appeals  directly  to  the  heart,  as  much  in 
his  lesser  poems  as  in  those  which  touch  the  sense  of  right 
and  wrong  in  men  with  stinging  keenness,  or  in  those  which 
warm  faith  to  its  ardor.  He  has  the  popular  love  of  a  story, 
and  tells  it  more  nearly  in  the  way  of  the  old  ballad-makers. 
He  does  not  require  a  tragedy,  or  a  plot,  or  any  unusual 
action.  An  incident,  if  it  only  have  some  glamour  of 
fancy,  or  a  touch  of  pathos,  or  the  likeness  of  old  romance, 
is  enough  for  him ;   he  will  take  it  and  sing  it  merely  as 

N 


178  MODERN   ESSAYS 

something  that  happened.  He  was  famihar  with  the 
legendary  lore  and  historical  anecdote  of  his  own  county 
of  Essex,  and  he  enjoyed  these  traditions  less  as  history 
than  as  poetry ;  he  came  to  them  on  their  picturesque 
and  human  side,  and  cared  for  them  because  of  the  emo- 
tions they  could  still  awake.  It  is  to  be  acknowledged, 
too,  that  the  material  for  these  romances  was  just  such  as 
delights  the  popular  imagination.  The  tales  of  the  witches, 
notwithstanding  the  melancholy  of  the  delusion,  have 
something  of  the  eeriness  that  is  inseparable  from  the 
thought  of  the  supernatural,  and  stir  the  dormant  sense 
of  some  evil  fascination  ;  and  the  legends  of  spectral  shapes 
that  haunted  every  seacoast  in  old  times,  and  of  which 
New  England  had  its  share,  have  a  similar  quality. 
Whether  they  are  told  by  credulous  Mather  or  the  make- 
believing  poet,  they  have  the  same  power  to  cast  a  spell. 
When  to  this  sort  of  interest  Whittier  adds,  as  he  often 
does,  the  sights  of  religious  persecution,  or  some  Lochinvar 
love-making,  or  the  expression  of  his  faith  in  heaven, 
his  success  as  a  story-teller  is  assured.  In  reality,  he  has 
managed  the  ballad  form  with  more  skill  than  other 
measures ;  but  it  is  because  he  loves  a  story  and  tells  it 
for  its  own  sake,  with  the  ease  of  one  who  sits  by  the  fire- 
side, and  with  a  childish  confidence  that  it  will  interest, 
that  he  succeeds  so  well  in  pleasing.  In  his  sea-stories, 
and  generally  in  what  he  writes  about  the  ocean,  it  is  ob- 
servable that  he  shows  himself  to  be  an  inland-dweller, 
whose  acquaintance  with  the  waves  is  by  distant  glimpses 
and  vacation  days.  He  is  not  a  poet  of  the  sea,  but  this 
does  not  invalidate  the  human  truth  of  his  tales  of  voyag- 
ing, which  is  the  element  he  cared  for.  Perhaps  the 
poetic  quality  of  his  genius  is  most  clear  in  these  ballads ; 
there  is  a  freer  fancy  ;  there  are  often  verses  about  woman's 


JOHN   GREENLEAF  WHITTIER  179 

eyes  and  hair  and  cheeks,  all  with  similes  from  sky  and 
gold  and  roses,  in  the  old  fashion,  but  not  with  less  natural- 
ness on  that  account ;  there  is  a  more  absorbing  appeal  to 
the  imagination  both  in  the  characters  and  the  incidents. 
If  these  cannot  be  called  his  most  vigorous  work,  they  are 
at  least  most  attractive  to  the  purely  poetic  taste. 

In  the  ballads,  nevertheless,  one  feels  the  strong  under- 
tow of  the  moral  sense  dragging  the  mind  back  to  serious 
realities.  It  is  probably  true  of  all  the  English  stock, 
as  it  certainly  is  of  New  England  people,  that  they  do  not 
object  to  a  moral,  in  a  poem  or  anywhere  else.  Whittier's 
moral  hold  upon  his  readers  is  doubtless  greater  than  his 
poetic  hold.  He  appeals  habitually  to  that  capacity  for 
moral  feeling  which  is  the  genius  of  New  England  in  its 
public  life,  and  the  explanation  of  its  extraordinary  in- 
fluence. No  one  ever  appeals  to  it  in  vain ;  and  with  such 
a  cause  as  Whittier  took  up  to  champion,  he  could  ring 
out  a  challenge  that  was  sure  to  rank  the  conscience  of 
his  people  upon  his  side.  His  Quaker  blood,  of  which  he 
was  proud,  pleaded  strongly  in  his  own  veins.  He  was  the 
inlieritor  of  suffering  for  conscience'  sake ;  he  was  bred 
in  the  faith  of  equality,  of  the  right  of  every  man  to  private 
judgment,  and  the  duty  of  every  man  to  follow  it  in 
public  action ;  and  he  was  well  grounded  in  the  doctrines 
of  political  liberty  which  are  the  foundation  of  the  common- 
wealth. It  is  more  likely,  however,  that  his  enthusiasm 
for  the  slave  did  not  proceed  from  that  love  of  freedom 
which  is  the  breath  of  New  England.  It  arose  from  his 
humanity,  in  the  broad  sense ;  from  his  belief,  sincerely 
held  and  practiced,  in  the  brotherhood  of  men ;  from  the 
strong  conviction  that  slavery  was  wrong.  It  was  a 
matter  of  conscience  more  than  of  reason,  of  compassion 
and   sympathy   more   than   of   theoretical   ideas.     These 


180  MODERN   ESSAYS 

were  the  sources  of  his  moral  feeHng ;  his  attitude  was  the 
same  whether  he  was  deahng  with  Quaker  outrages  in 
the  past  or  with  negro  wrongs  in  the  present.  In  expressing 
liimself  upon  the  great  topic  of  his  time,  he  was  thus  able 
to  make  the  same  direct  appeal  to  the  heart  that  was 
natural  to  his  temperament.  The  people  either  felt  as 
he  did,  or  were  so  circumstanced  that  they  would  respond 
from  the  same  springs  which  had  been  touched  in  him, 
if  a  way  could  be  found  to  them.  Outside  of  the  reserves  of 
political  expediency,  the  movement  for  abolition  was 
harmonious  with  the  moral  nature  of  New  England.  Yet 
Whittier's  occasional  verses  upon  this  theme  made  him 
only  the  poet  of  his  party.  In  themselves  they  have 
great  vigor  of  feeling,  and  frequently  force  of  language ; 
they  have  necessarily  the  defects,  judged  from  the  artistic 
standpoint,  of  poems  upon  a  painful  subject,  in  which  it 
was  desirable  not  to  soften,  but  to  bring  out  the  tragedy 
most  harshly.  The  pain,  however,  is  entirely  in  the 
facts  presented;  the  poetry  lies  in  the  indignation,  the 
eloquence,  the  fine  appeal.  These  verses,  indeed,  are 
nearer  to  a  prose  level  than  the  rest  of  his  work,  in  the 
sense  of  partaking  of  the  character  of  eloquence  rather 
than  of  poetry.  Their  method  is  less  through  the  imagina- 
tion than  by  rhetoric.  They  are  declamatory.  But 
rhetoric  of  the  balanced  and  concise  kind  natural  to  short 
metrical  stanzas  is  especially  well  adapted  to  arrest 
popular  attention  and  to  hold  it.  Just  as  he  told  a 
story  in  the  ballad  with  a  true  popular  feeling,  so  he 
pleaded  the  cause  of  the  abolitionists  in  a  rhetoric  most 
effective  with  the  popular  taste.  In  the  war  time,  he  rose, 
under  the  stress  of  the  great  struggle,  to  finer  poetic  work ; 
the  softer  feelings  of  pity,  together  with  a  solemn  religious 
trust,  made  the  verses  of  those  battle-summers  different 


JOHN   GREENLEAF  WHITTIER  181 

in  quality  from  those  of  the  literary  conflict  of  the  earlier 
years.  He  never  surpassed,  on  the  lower  level  of  rhetoric, 
the  lines  which  bade  farewell  to  Webster's  greatness,  nor 
did  he  ever  equal  in  intensity  those  rallying-cries  of  de- 
fiance to  the  South,  in  which  the  free  spirit  of  the  North 
seemed  to  speak  before  its  time.  In  these  he  is  urging 
on  to  the  conflict,  —  a  moral  and  peaceful  one,  he  thought, 
but  not  less  real  and  hard ;  in  the  war  pieces,  he  seems 
rather  to  be  waiting  for  the  decision  of  Providence,  while 
the  fight  has  rolled  on  far  in  the  van  of  where  he  stands. 
The  power  of  all  these  poems,  their  reality  to  those  times, 
is  undeniable.  Their  fitness  for  declamation  perhaps 
spread  his  reputation.  Longfellow  is  distinctly  the 
children's  poet ;  but  Whittier  had  a  part  of  their  suffrages, 
and  it  was  by  such  stirring  occasional  verses  that  he  gained 
them.  In  those  years  of  patriotism  he  was  to  many  of 
them,  as  he  was  to  me,  tjie  first  poet  whom  they  knew. 
At  that  time  his  reputation  in  ways  like  these  became 
established.  If  he  had  not  then  done  his  best  work,  he 
had  at  times  reached  the  highest  level  he  was  to  attain, 
and  he  had  already  given  full  expression  to  his  nature. 
His  place  as  the  poet  of  the  anti-slavery  movement  was 
fixed.  It  is  observable  that  he  did  not  champion  other 
causes  after  that  of  abolition  was  won,  and  in  this  he  dif- 
fered from  most  of  his  companions.  The  only  other  cause 
that  roused  him  to  the  point  of  poetic  expression  was  that 
of  the  Italian  patriots.  Some  of  his  most  indignant 
and  sharpest  invective  was  directed  against  Pope  Pius  IX., 
who  stood  to  Whittier  as  the  very  type  of  that  Christian 
obstructiveness  to  the  work  of  Christ  which  in  a  lesser 
degree  he  had  seen  in  his  own  country,  and  had  seen 
always  only  to  express  the  heartfelt  scorn  which  descended 
to  him  with  his  Quaker  birthright. 


182  MODERN  ESSAYS 

It  would  be  unfitting  to  leave  this  part  of  the  subject 
without  reference  to  the  numerous  personal  tributes, 
often  full  of  grace,  of  tender  feeling,  and  of  true  honor 
paid  to  the  humble,  which  he  was  accustomed  to  lay  as 
his  votive  wreath  on  the  graves  of  his  companions.  One 
is  struck  once  more  by  the  reflection  how  large  a  part 
those  who  are  now  forgotten  had  in  advancing  the  cause, 
how  many  modest  but  earnest  lives  entered  into  the  work, 
and  what  a  feeling  of  comradery  there  was  among  those 
engaged  in  philanthropic  service  in  all  lands.  The  verses 
to  Garrison  and  Sumner  naturally  stand  first  in  fervor 
and  range  as  well  as  in  interest,  but  nearly  all  these 
mementos  of  the  dead  have  some  touch  of  nobility. 

The  victory  of  the  Northern  ideas  left  to  Whittier  a 
freer  field  for  the  later  exercise  of  his  talent.  It  was 
natural  that  he  should  have  been  among  the  first  to  speak 
words  of  conciliation  to  the  defeated  South,  and  to  offer 
to  forget.  He  was  a  man  of  peace,  of  pardons,  of  all  kinds 
of  catholic  inclusions ;  and  in  this  temperament  with 
regard  to  the  future  of  the  whole  country,  fortunately, 
the  people  agreed  with  him.  With  the  coming  of  the 
years  of  reconciliation  his  reputation  steadily  gained. 
His  representative  quality  as  a  New  Englander  was  recog- 
nized. It  was  seen  that  from  the  beginning  the  real 
spirit  of  New  England  had  been  truly  with  him,  and,  the 
cause  being  now  won  and  the  past  a  great  one,  his  country- 
men were  proud  of  him  for  having  been  a  part  of  it.  At 
this  happy  moment  he  produced  a  work  free  from  any 
entanglement  with  things  disputed,  remarkable  for  its 
truth  to  life,  and  exemplifying  the  character  of  New  Eng- 
land at  its  fireside  in  the  way  which  comes  home  to  all 
men.  It  is  not  without  perfect  justice  that  Snow-Bound 
takes  rank  with  The  Cotter's  Saturday  Night  and  The 


JOHN   GREENLEAF  WHITTIER  183 

Deserted  Village ;  it  belongs  in  this  group  as  a  faithful 
picture  of  humble  life.  It  is  perfect  in  its  conception  and 
complete  in  its  execution ;  it  is  the  New  England  home, 
entire,  with  its  characteristic  scene,  its  incidents  of  house- 
hold life,  its  Christian  virtues.  Perhaps  many  of  us  look 
back  to  it  as  Horace  did  to  the  Sabine  farm ;  but  there  are 
more  who  can  still  remember  it  as  a  reality,  and  to  them 
this  winter  idyl  is  the  poetry  of  their  own  lives.  It  is,  in 
a  peculiar  sense,  the  one  poem  of  New  England, — so 
completely  indigenous  that  the  soil  has  fairly  created  it, 
so  genuine  as  to  be  better  than  history.  It  is  by  virtue 
of  this  poem  that  Whittier  must  be  most  highly  rated,  be- 
cause he  is  here  most  impersonal,  and  has  succeeded  in 
expressing  the  common  life  with  most  directness.  All 
his  affection  for  the  soil  on  which  he  was  born  went  into 
it ;  and  no  one  ever  felt  more  deeply  that  attachment  to 
the  region  of  his  birth  which  is  the  great  spring  of  patriot- 
ism. In  his  other  poems  he  had  told  the  legends  of  the 
country,  and  winnowed  its  history  for  what  was  most 
heroic  or  romantic ;  he  had  often  dwelt,  with  a  reiteration 
which  emphasized  his  fondness,  upon  its  scenery  in  every 
season,  by  all  its  mountains  and  capes  and  lakes  and 
rivers,  as  if  fearful  lest  he  should  offend  by  omission  some 
local  divinity  of  the  field  or  flood ;  he  had  shared  in  the 
great  moral  passion  of  his  people  in  peace  and  war,  and 
had  become  its  voice  and  been  adopted  as  one  of  its  memo- 
rable leaders ;  but  here  he  came  to  the  heart  of  the  matter, 
and  by  describing  the  homestead,  which  was  the  unit  and 
centre  of  New  England  life,  he  set  the  seal  upon  his  work, 
and  entered  into  all  New  England  homes  as  a  perpetual 
guest. 

There  remains  one  part  of  his  work,  and  that,  in  some 
respects,  the  loftiest,  which  is  in  no  sense  local.     The 


184  MODERN  ESSAYS 

Christian  faith  which  he  expressed  is  not  to  be  limited  as 
distinctly  characteristic  of  New  England.  No  one  would 
make  the  claim.  It  was  descended  from  the  Quaker  faith 
only  as  Emerson's  was  derived  from  that  of  the  Puritan. 
Whittier  belongs  with  those  few  who  arise  in  all  parts  of 
the  Christian  world  and  out  of  the  bosom  of  all  sects, 
who  are  lovers  of  the  spirit.  They  illustrate  the  purest 
teachings  of  Christ,  they  express  the  simplest  aspirations 
of  man ;  and  this  is  their  religious  life.  They  do  not 
trouble  themselves  except  to  do  good,  to  be  sincere,  to 
walk  in  the  sight  of  the  higher  powers  with  humbleness, 
and  if  not  without  doubt,  yet  with  undiminished  trust. 
The  oj)timism  of  Whittier  is  one  with  theirs.  It  is  in- 
dissolubly  connected  with  his  humanity  to  men.  In  his 
religious  as  in  his  moral  nature  there  was  the  same  sim- 
plicity, the  same  entire  coherency.  His  expression  of  the 
religious  feeling  is  always  noble  and  impressive.  He  is 
one  of  the  very  few  whose  poems,  under  the  fervor  of 
religious  emotion,  have  taken  a  higher  range  and  become 
true  hymns.  Several  of  these  are  already  adopted  into 
the  books  of  praise.  But  independently  of  these  few  most 
complete  expressions  of  trust  and  worship,  wherever 
Whittier  touches  upon  the  problems  of  the  spiritual  life 
he  evinces  the  qualities  of  a  great  and  liberal  nature ; 
indeed,  the  traits  which  are  most  deeply  impressed  upon 
us,  in  his  character,  are  those  which  are  seen  most  clearly 
in  his  religious  verse.  It  is  impossible  to  think  of  him  and 
forget  that  he  is  a  Christian.  It  is  not  rash  to  say  that  it 
is  probable  that  his  religious  poems  have  reached  many 
more  hearts  than  his  anti-slavery  pieces,  and  have  had  a 
profounder  influence  to  quiet,  to  console,  and  to  refine. 
Yet  he  was  not  distinctly  a  poet  of  religion,  as  Herbert 
was.     He  was  a  man  in  whom  religion  was  vital,  just  as 


JOHN   GREENLEAF  WHITTIER  185 

affection  for  his  home  and  indignation  at  wrongdoing  were 
vital.  He  gave  expression  to  his  manhood,  and  conse- 
quently to  the  religious  life  he  led.  There  are  in  these 
revelations  of  his  nature  the  same  frankness  and  the  same 
reality  as  in  his  most  heated  polemics  with  the  oppressors 
of  the  weak ;  one  cannot  avoid  feeling  that  it  is  less  the 
poet  than  the  man  who  is  speaking,  and  that  in  his  words 
he  is  giving  himself  to  his  fellow-men.  This  sense  that 
Whittier  belongs  to  that  class  of  writers  in  whom  the  man 
is  larger  than  his  work  is  a  just  one.  Over  and  above  his 
natural  genius  was  his  character.  At  every  step  of  the 
analysis,  it  is  not  with  art,  but  with  matter,  not  with  the 
literature  of  taste,  but  with  that  of  life,  not  with  a  poet's 
skill,  but  with  a  man's  soul,  that  we  find  ourselves  dealing ; 
in  a  word,  it  is  with  character  almost  solely  :  and  it  is  this 
which  has  made  him  the  poet  of  his  people,  as  the  highest 
art  might  have  failed  to  do,  because  he  has  put  his  New 
England  birth  and  breeding,  the  common  inheritance  of 
her  freedom-loving,  humane,  and  religious  people  which 
he  shared,  into  plain  living,  yet  on  such  a  level  of  distinc- 
tion that  his  virtues  have  honored  the  land. 

The  simplicity  and  dignity  of  Whittier's  later  years, 
and  his  fine  modesty  in  respect  to  his  literary  work,  have 
fitly  closed  his  career.  He  has  received  in  the  fullest 
measure  from  the  younger  generation  the  rewards  of  honor 
which  belong  to  such  a  life.  In  his  retirement  these  un- 
sought tributes  of  an  almost  affectionate  veneration  have 
followed  him ;  and  in  the  struggle  about  us  for  other 
prizes  than  those  he  aimed  at,  in  the  crush  for  wealth  and 
notoriety,  men  have  been  pleased  to  remember  him,  the 
plain  citizen,  uncheapened  by  riches  and  unsolicitous  for 
fame,  ending  his  life  with  the  same  habits  with  which  he 
began  it,  in  the  same  spirit  in  which  he  led  it,  without  any 


/  MODERN   ESSAYS 

compromise  with  the  world.  The  Quaker  aloofness  which 
has  always  seemed  to  characterize  him,  his  difference 
from  other  men,  has  never  been  sufficient  to  break  the 
bonds  which  unite  him  with  the  people,  but  it  has  helped 
to  secure  for  him  the  feeling  with  which  the  poet  is  always 
regarded  as  a  man  apart ;  the  religious  element  in  his 
nature  has  had  the  same  effect  to  win  for  him  a  peculiar 
regard  akin  to  that  which  was  felt  in  old  times  for  the 
sacred  office ;  to  the  imagination  he  has  been,  especially 
in  the  years  of  his  age,  a  man  of  peace  and  of  God.  No  one 
of  his  contemporaries  has  been  more  silently  beloved  and 
more  sincerely  honored.  If  it  be  true  that  in  him  the  man 
was  more  than  the  poet,  it  is  happily  not  true,  as  in  such 
cases  it  too  often  is,  that  the  life  was  less  than  it  should 
have  been.  The  life  of  Whittier  affects  us  rather  as  sin- 
gularly fortunate  in  the  completeness  with  which  he  was 
able  to  do  his  wdiole  duty,  to  possess  his  soul,  and  to  keep 
himself  unspotted  from  the  world.  He  was  fortunate  in 
his  humble  birth  and  the  virtues  which  were  about  his 
cradle ;  he  was  fortunate  in  the  great  cause  for  which  he 
suffered  and  labored  in  his  prime,  exactly  fitted  as  it  was 
to  develop  his  nature  to  its  highest  moral  reach,  and  lift 
him  to  real  greatness  of  soul ;  he  was  fortunate  in  his  old 
age,  in  the  mellowness  of  his  humanity,  the  repose  of  his 
faith,  the  fame  which,  more  truly  than  can  usually  be 
said,  was  "love  disguised."  Lovers  of  New  England  will 
cherish  his  memory  as  that  of  a  man  in  whom  the  virtues 
of  this  soil,  both  for  public  and  for  private  life,  shine  most 
purely.  On  the  roll  of  American  poets  we  know  not  how 
he  may  be  ranked  hereafter,  but  among  the  honored 
names  of  the  New  England  past  his  place  is  secure. 


THACKERAY'S  CENTENARY  i 

BY 

Henry  Augustine  Beers 

In  this  very  delightful  and  acutely  critical  essay  by  Professor  Beers 
the  use  of  the  catalogue  should  be  noted,  —  and  equally  how  that  use  b 
concealed.  The  first  paragraph  frankly  states  the  two  objects  of  the 
paper :  first,  to  enquire  what  changes,  in  our  way  of  looking  at  him, 
have  come  about  in  the  half  century  since  Thackeray's  death  ;  secondly, 
to  give  Professor  Beers'  own  personal  experience  as  a  reader  of  Thackeray. 
But  the  first  question  is  dismissed  in  two  short  paragraphs.  The  rest 
of  the  essay  discusses  the  critical  aspect  of  Thackeray's  work  in  the 
guise  of  personal  reminiscence.  Thackeray  is  a  satirist,  is  imperfectly 
realistic,  detested  sham  heroics,  has  a  mixture  of  humor  and  pensiveness, 
etc.  But,  by  means  of  the  device  of  the  personal  experience,  this 
criticism  is  kept  from  disagreeable  dogmatic  assertion.  And  the  whole 
is  unified  by  the  charm  of  a  single  personality. 

After  all  that  has  been  written  about  Thackeray,  it 
would  be  flat  for  me  to  present  here  another  estimate  of 
his  work,  or  try  to  settle  the  relative  value  of  his  books. 
In  this  paper  I  shall  endeavor  only  two  things :  First  to 
enquire  what  changes,  in  our  way  of  looking  at  him,  have 
come  about  in  the  half  century  since  his  death.  Secondly 
to  give  my  own  personal  experience  as  a  reader  of 
Thackeray,  in  the  hope  that  it  may  represent,  in  some 
degree,  the  experience  of  others. 

What  is  left  of  Thackeray  in  this  hundredth  year  since 
his  birth ;  and  how  much  of  him  has  been  eaten  away  by 
destructive  criticism ;    or  rather  by  time,  that  far  more 

1  From  The  Yale  Review  for  October,  1911,  by  permission  of  the  author 
and  of  the  editor  of  The  Vale  Review. 

187 


188  MODERN  ESSAYS 

corrosive  acid,  whose  silent  operation  criticism  does  but 
record?  As  the  nineteenth  century  recedes,  four  names 
in  the  EngUsh  fiction  of  that  century  stand  out  ever  more 
clearly,  as  the  great  names :  Scott,  Dickens,  Thackeray, 
and  George  Eliot.  I  know  what  may  be  said  —  what  has 
been  said  —  for  others :  Jane  Austen  and  the  Bronte 
sisters,  Charles  Reade,  Trollope,  Meredith,  Stevenson, 
Hardy.  I  believe  that  these  will  endure,  but  will  endure 
as  writers  of  a  secondary  importance.  Others  are  already 
fading,  Bulwer  is  all  gone,  and  Kingsley  is  going  fast. 

The  order  in  which  I  have  named  the  four  great  novelists 
is  usually,  I  think,  the  order  in  which  the  reader  comes  to 
them.  It  is  also  the  order  of  their  publication.  For 
although  Thackeray  was  a  year  older  than  Dickens,  his 
first  novels  were  later  in  date,  and  he  was  much  later  in 
securing  his  public.  But  the  chronological  reason  is  not 
the  real  reason  why  we  read  them  in  that  order.  It  is 
because  of  their  different  appeal.  Scott  was  a  romancer, 
Dickens  a  humorist,  Thackeray  a  satirist,  and  George  Eliot 
a  moralist.  Each  was  much  more  than  that ;  but  that  was 
what  they  were,  reduced  to  the  lowest  term.  Romance, 
humor,  satire,  and  moral  philosophy  respectively  were  their 
starting  point,  their  strongest  impelling  force,  and  their  be- 
setting sin.  Whenever  they  fell  below  themselves,  Walter 
Scott  lapsed  into  sheer  romantic  unreality,  Dickens  into 
extravagant  caricature,  Thackeray  into  burlesque,  George 
Eliot  into  psychology  and  ethical  reflection. 

I  wonder  whether  your  experience  here  is  the  same  as 
mine.  By  the  time  that  I  was  fourteen,  as  nearly  as  I 
can  remember,  I  had  read  all  the  Waverley  novels.  Then 
I  got  hold  of  Dickens,  and  for  two  or  three  years  I  lived 
in  Dickens's  world,  though  perhaps  he  and  Scott  some- 
what overlapped  at  the  edge  —  I  cannot  quite  remember- 


THACKERAY'S  CENTENARY       189 

I  was  sixteen  when  Thackeray  died,  and  I  heard  my  elders 
mourning  over  the  loss.     "Dear  old  Thackeray  is  gone," 
they  told  each  other,  and  proceeded  to  re-read  all  his  books, 
with  infinite  laughter.     So  I  picked  up   "Vanity  Fair" 
and  tried  to  enjoy  it.     But  fresh  from  Scott's  picturesque 
page  and  Dickens's  sympathetic  extravagances,  how  dull, 
insipid,  repellent,  disgusting  were  George  Osborne,  and 
fat  Joseph  Sedley,  and  Amelia  and  Becky !      What  sillies 
they  were  and  how  trivial  their  doings  !     "  It's  just  about 
a  lot  of  old  girls,"  I  said  to  my  uncle,  who  laughed  in  a 
provokingly  superior  manner  and  replied,  "My  boy,  those 
old  girls  are  life."     I  will  confess  that  even  to  this  day, 
something  of  that  shock  of  disillusion,  that  first  cold  plunge 
into  "Vanity  Fair,"  hangs  about  the  book.     I  understand 
what  Mr.  Howells  means  when  he  calls  it  "the  poorest 
of     Thackeray's     novels  —  crude,     heavy-handed,     cari- 
catured."    I  ought  to  have  begun,  as  he  did,  with  "Pen- 
dennis,"  of  which  he  writes :   "I  am  still  not  sure  but  it  is 
the  author's  greatest  book."     I  don't  know  about  that, 
but  I  know  that  it  is  the  novel  of  Thackeray's  that  I  have 
read  most  often  and  like  the  best,  better  than  "Henry 
Esmond"  or  "Vanity  Fair";   just  as  I  prefer  "The  Mill 
on  the  Floss"  to  "Adam  Bede,"  and  "The  House  of  the 
Seven  Gables"  to  "The  Scarlet  Letter"  (as  Hawthorne 
did  himself,  by  the  way) ;  or  as  I  agree  with  Dickens  that 
"Bleak  House"  was  his  best  novel,  though  the  public 
never  thought  so.     We  may  concede  to  the  critics  that, 
objectively  considered,  and  by  all  the  rules  of  judgment, 
this  or  that  work  is  its  author's  masterpiece  and  we  ought 
to  like  it  best  —  only  we  don't.     We  have  our  private 
preferences  which  we  cannot  explain  and  do  not  seek  to 
defend.     As  for  "Esmond,"  my  comparative  indifference 
to  it  is  only,  I  suppose,  a  part  of  my  dislike  of  the  genre. 


190  MODERN  ESSAYS 

I  know  the  grounds  on  which  the  historical  novel  is  recom- 
mended, and  I  know  how  intimately  Thackeray's  imagina- 
tion was  at  home  in  the  eighteenth  century.  Historically 
that  is  what  he  stands  for :  he  was  a  Queen  Anne  man  — 
like  Austin  Dobson :  he  passed  over  the  great  romantic 
generation  altogether  and  joined  on  to  Fielding  and  Gold- 
smith and  their  predecessors.  Still  no  man  knows  the  past 
as  he  does  the  present.  I  will  take  Thackeray's  report 
of  the  London  of  his  day ;  but  I  do  not  care  very  much 
about  his  reproduction  of  the  London  of  1745.  Let  me 
whisper  to  you  that  since  early  youth  I  have  not  been  able 
to  take  much  pleasure  in  the  Waverley  novels,  except  those 
parts  of  them  in  which  the  author  presents  Scotch  life  and 
character  as  he  knew  them. 

I  think  it  was  not  till  I  was  seventeen  or  eighteen,  and  a 
Freshman  in  College,  that  I  really  got  hold  of  Thackeray ; 
but  when  once  I  had  done  so,  the  result  was  to  drive 
Dickens  out  of  my  mind,  as  one  nail  drives  out  another.  I 
never  could  go  back  to  him  after  that.  His  sentiment 
seemed  tawdry,  his  humor,  buffoonery.  Hung  side  by 
side,  the  one  picture  killed  the  other.  "Dickens  knows," 
said  Thackeray,  "that  my  books  are  a  protest  against 
him  :  that,  if  the  one  set  are  true,  the  other  must  be  false." 
There  is  a  species  of  ingratitude,  of  disloyalty,  in  thus 
turning  one's  back  upon  an  old  favorite  who  has  furnished 
one  so  intense  a  pleasure  and  has  had  so  large  a  share  in 
one's  education.  But  it  is  the  cruel  condition  of  all 
growth, 

"The  heavens  that  now  draw  him  with  sweetness  untold. 
Once  found,  for  new  heavens  he  spurneth  the  old." 

But  when  I  advanced  to  George  Eliot,  as  I  did  a  year  or 
two  later,  I  did  not  find  that  her  fiction  and  Thackeray's 
destroyed  each  other.     I  have  continued  to  re-read  them 


THACKERAY'S  CENTENARY       191 

both  ever  since  and  with  undiminished  satisfaction.  And 
yet  it  was,  in  some  sense,  an  advance.  I  would  not  say 
that  George  Ehot  was  a  greater  novelist  than  Thackeray, 
nor  even  so  great.  But  her  message  is  more  gravely 
intellectual :  the  psychology  of  her  characters  more  deeply 
studied  :  the  problems  of  life  and  mind  more  thoughtfully 
confronted.  Thought,  indeed,  thought  in  itself  and  apart 
from  the  story,  which  is  only  a  chosen  illustration  of  a 
thesis,  seems  her  principal  concern.  Thackeray  is  always 
concrete,  never  speculative  or  abstract.  The  mimetic 
instinct  was  strong  in  him,  but  weak  in  his  great  contem- 
porary, to  the  damage  and  the  final  ruin  of  her  art.  His 
method  was  observation,  hers  analysis.  Mr.  Brownell  says 
that  Thackeray's  characters  are  "delineated  rather  than 
dissected."  There  is  little  analysis,  indeed  hardly  any  liter- 
ary criticism  in  his  "English  Humorists"  :  only  personal 
impressions.  He  deals  with  the  men,  not  with  the  books. 
The  same  is  true  of  his  art  criticisms.  He  is  concerned 
with  the  sentiment  of  the  picture,  seldom  with  its  tech- 
nique, or  even  with  its  imaginative  or  expressional  power. 
In  saying  that  Dickens  was  essentially  a  humorist  and 
Thackeray  a  satirist,  I  do  not  mean,  of  course,  that  the 
terms  are  mutually  exclusive.  Thackeray  was  a  great 
humorist  as  well  as  a  satirist,  but  Dickens  was  hardly  a 
satirist  at  all.  I  know  that  Mr.  Chesterton  says  he  was, 
but  I  cannot  believe  it.  He  cites  "Martin  Chuzzlewit." 
Is  "Martin  Chuzzlewit"  a  satire  on  the  Americans .f*  It 
is  a  caricature  —  a  very  gross  caricature  —  a  piece  of 
bouffe.  But  it  lacks  the  true  likeness  which  is  the  sting 
of  satire.  Dickens  and  Thackeray  had,  in  common,  a 
quick  sense  of  the  ridiculous,  but  they  employed  it  dif- 
ferently. Dickens  was  a  humorist  almost  in  the  Ben 
Jonsouian  sense :    his  field   was   the   odd,  the  eccentric, 


192  MODERN  ESSAYS 

the  grotesque  —  sometimes  the  monstrous ;  his  books, 
and  especially  his  later  books,  are  full  of  queer  people, 
frequently  as  incredible  as  Jonson's  dramatis  personcB. 
In  other  words,  he  was  a  caricaturist.  Mr.  Howells  says 
that  Thackeray  was  a  caricaturist,  but  I  do  not  think  he 
was  so  except  incidentally  ;  while  Dickens  was  constantly 
so.  When  satire  identifies  itself  with  its  object,  it  takes 
the  form  of  parody.  Thackeray  was  a  parodist,  a  travesty 
writer,  an  artist  in  burlesque.  What  is  the  difference 
between  caricature  and  parody  ?  I  take  it  to  be  this,  that 
caricature  is  the  ludicrous  exaggeration  of  character  for 
purely  comic  effect,  while  parody  is  its  ludicrous  hnitation 
for  the  purpose  of  mockery.  Now  there  is  plenty  of  in- 
vention in  Dickens,  but  little  imitation.  He  began  with 
broad /aceftop —  " Sketches  by  Boz"  and  the  "Pickwick 
Papers" ;  while  Thackeray  began  with  travesty  and  kept 
up  the  habit  more  or  less  all  his  life.  At  the  Charterhouse 
he  spent  his  time  in  drawing  burlesque  representations 
of  Shakespeare,  and  composing  parodies  on  L.  E.  L.  and 
other  lady  poets.  At  Cambridge  he  wrote  a  mock  heroic 
"Timbuctoo,"  the  subject  for  the  prize  poem  of  the  year  — 
a  prize  which  Tennyson  captured.  Later  he  wrote  those 
capital  travesties,  "Rebecca  and  Rowena"  and  "Novels  by 
Eminent  Hands."  In  " Fitzboodle's  Confessions"  he 
wrote  a  sentimental  ballad,  "The  Willow  Tree,"  and 
straightway  a  parody  of  the  same.  You  remember  Lady 
Jane  Sheepshanks  who  composed  those  lines  comparing 
her  youth  to 

"A  violet  shrinking  meanly 
Where  blow  the  March  winds '  keenly  — 
A  timid  fawn  on  wildwood  lawn 
Where  oak-boughs  rustle  greenly." 

*  Unquestionably  Lady  Jane  pronounced  it  winds. 


THACKERAY'S  CENTENARY       193 

I  cannot  describe  the  gleeful  astonishment  with  which  I 
discovered  that  Thackeray  was  even  aware  of  our  own 
excellent  Mrs.  Sigourney,  whose  house  in  Hartford  I  once 
inhabited  (et  nos  in  Arcadia).  The  passage  is  in  "Blue- 
Beard's  Ghost." 

"As  Mrs.  Sigourney  sweetly  sings, 

O  the  heart  is  a  soft  and  delicate  thing, 
O  the  heart  is  a  lute  with  a  thrilling  string, 
A  spirit  that  floats  on  a  gossamer's  wing. 
Such  was  Fatima's  heart." 

Do  not  try  to  find  these  lines  in  Mrs.  Sigourney 's  complete 
poems :  they  are  not  there.  Thackeray's  humor  always 
had  this  satirical  edge  to  it.  Look  at  any  engraving  of  the 
bust  by  Deville  (the  replica  of  which  is  in  the  National 
Portrait  Gallery)  which  was  taken  when  its  subject  was 
fourteen  years  old.  There  is  a  quizzical  look  about  the 
mouth,  prophetic  and  unmistakable.  That  boy  is  a  tease  : 
I  would  not  like  to  be  his  little  sister.  And  this  boyish 
sense  of  fun  never  deserted  the  mature  Thackeray.  I 
like  to  turn  sometimes  from  his  big  novels,  to  those  de- 
lightful "Roundabout  Papers"  and  the  like  where  he 
gives  a  free  rein  to  his  frolic :  "Memorials  of  Gormandiz- 
ing," the  "Ballads  of  Policeman  X,"  "Mrs.  Perkins'  Ball," 
where  the  Mulligan  of  Ballymulligan,  disdaining  the  waltz 
step  of  the  Saxon,  whoops  around  the  room  with  his 
terrified  partner  in  one  of  the  dances  of  his  own  green  land. 
Or  that  paper  which  describes  how  the  author  took  the 
children  to  the  zoological  gardens,  and  how 

"First  he  saw  the  white  bear,  then  he  saw  the  black. 
Then  he  saw  the  camel  with  a  hump  upon  his  back. 
Chorus  of  Ch  ildren : 

Then  he  saw  the  camel  with  the  HUMP  upon  his  back." 
o 


194  MODERN  ESSAYS 

Of  course  in  all  comic  art  there  is  a  touch  of  caricature,  i.e., 
of  exaggeration.  The  Rev.  Charles  Honeyman  in  "The 
Newcomes,"  e.g.,  has  been  denounced  as  a  caricature. 
But  compare  him  with  any  of  Dickens's  clerical  characters, 
such  as  Stiggins  or  Chadband,  and  say  which  is  the  fine 
art  and  which  the  coarse.  And  this  brings  me  to  the  first  of 
those  particulars  in  which  we  do  not  view  Thackeray 
quite  as  his  contemporaries  viewed  him.  In  his  own  time 
he  was  regarded  as  the  greatest  of  English  realists.  "I 
have  no  head  above  my  eyes,"  he  said.  "I  describe  what 
I  see."  It  is  thus  that  Anthony  Trollope  regarded  him, 
whose  life  of  Thackeray  was  published  in  1879.  And  of 
his  dialogue,  in  special,  Trollope  writes  :  "The  ear  is  never 
wounded  by  a  tone  that  is  false."  It  is  not  quite  the  same 
to-day.  Zola  and  the  roman  naturaliste  of  the  French 
and  Russian  novelists  have  accustomed  us  to  forms  of 
realism  so  much  more  drastic,  that  Thackeray's  realism 
seems,  by  comparison,  reticent  and  partial.  Not  that  he 
tells  falsehoods,  but  that  he  does  not  and  will  not  tell  the 
whole  truth.  He  was  quite  conscious,  himself,  of  the  limits 
which  convention  and  propriety  imposed  upon  him  and 
he  submitted  to  them  willingly.  "Since  the  author  of 
'Tom  Jones'  was  buried,"  he  wrote,  "no  writer  of  fiction 
has  been  permitted  to  depict,  to  his  utmost  power,  a  Man." 
Thackeray's  latest  biographer,  Mr.  Whibley,  notes  in 
him  certain  early  Victorian  prejudices.  He  wanted  to 
hang  a  curtain  over  Etty's  nudities.  Goethe's  "Wahlver- 
wandtschaf ten "  scandalized  him.  He  found  the  drama 
of  Victor  Hugo  and  Dumas  "profoundly  immoral  and 
absurd";  and  had  no  use  for  Balzac,  his  own  closest 
parallel  in  French  fiction.  Mr.  G.  B.  Shaw,  the  blas- 
phemer of  Shakespeare,  speaks  of  Thackeray's  "enslaved 
mind,"  yet  admits  that  he  tells  the  truth  in  spite  of  him- 


THACKERAY'S  CENTENARY       195 

self.  "He  exhausts  all  his  feeble  pathos  in  trying  to  make 
you  sorry  for  the  death  of  Col.  Newcome,  imploring 
you  to  regard  him  as  a  noble-hearted  gentleman,  instead  of 
an  insufferable  old  fool  .  .  .  but  he  gives  you  the  facts 
about  him  faithfully."  But  the  denial  of  Thackeray's 
realism  goes  farther  than  this  and  attacks  in  some  in- 
stances the  truthfulness  of  his  character  portrayal.  Thus 
Mr.  Whibley,  who  acknowledges,  in  general,  that  Thack- 
eray was  "a  true  naturalist,"  finds  that  the  personages  in 
several  of  his  novels  are  "drawn  in  varying  planes." 
Charles  Honeyman  and  Fred  Bay  ham,  e.g.,  are  frank 
caricatures ;  Helen  and  Laura  Pendennis,  and  "Stunning" 
Warrington  are  somewhat  unreal ;  Col.  Newcome  is 
overdrawn  —  "the  travesty  of  a  man"  ;  and  even  Beatrix 
Esmond,  whom  Mr.  Brownell  pronounces  her  creator's 
masterpiece,  is  a  "picturesque  apparition  rather  than  a 
real  woman."  And  finally  comes  Mr.  Howells  and  affirms 
that  Thackeray  is  no  realist  but  a  caricaturist :  Jane 
Austen  and  TroUope  are  the  true  realists. 

Well,  let  it  be  granted  that  Thackeray  is  imperfectly 
realistic.  I  am  not  concerned  to  defend  him.  Nor  shall 
I  enter  into  this  wearisome  discussion  of  what  realism  is 
or  is  not,  further  than  to  say  that  I  don't  believe  the  thing 
exists ;  that  is,  I  don't  believe  that  photographic  fiction  — 
the  "  mirror  up  to  nature  "  fiction  —  exists  or  can  exist.  A 
mirror  reflects,  a  photograph  reproduces  its  object  without 
selection  or  rejection.  Does  any  artist  do  this?  Try  to 
write  the  history  of  one  day :  everything  —  literally 
everything  —  that  you  have  done,  said,  thought :  and 
everything  that  you  have  seen,  done,  or  heard  said  during 
twenty -four  hours.  That  would  be  realism,  but,  suppose  it 
possible,  what  kind  of  reading  would  it  make  ?  The  artist 
must  select,  reject,  combine,  and  he  does  it  differently 


196  MODERN   ESSAYS 

from  every  other  artist :  he  mixes  his  personality  with  his 
art,  colors  his  art  with  it.  The  point  of  view  from  which 
he  works  is  personal  to  himself :  satire  is  a  point  of  view, 
humor  is  a  point  of  view,  so  is  religion,  so  is  morality,  so  is 
optimism  or  pessimism,  or  any  philosophy,  temper,  or 
mood.  In  speaking  of  the  great  Russians  Mr.  Howells 
praises  their  "transparency  of  style,  unclouded  by  any 
mist  of  the  personality  which  we  mistakenly  value  in 
style,  and  which  ought  no  more  to  be  there  than  the 
artist's  personality  should  be  in  a  portrait."  This  seems 
to  me  true ;  though  it  was  said  long  ago,  the  style  is  the 
man.  Yet  if  this  transparency,  this  impersonality  is 
measurably  attainable  in  the  style,  it  is  not  so  in  the  sub- 
stance of  the  novel.  If  an  impersonal  report  of  life  is  the 
ideal  of  naturalistic  or  realistic  fiction  —  and  I  don't 
say  it  is  —  then  it  is  an  impossible  ideal.  People  are  say- 
ing now  that  Zola  is  a  romantic  writer.  Why .''  Because, 
however  well  documented,  his  facts  are  selected  to  make 
a  particular  impression.  I  suppose  the  reason  why 
Thackeray's  work  seemed  so  much  more  realistic  to  his 
generation  than  it  does  to  ours  was  that  his  particular 
point  of  view  was  that  of  the  satirist,  and  his  satire  was 
largely  directed  to  the  exposure  of  cant,  humbug,  affectation 
and  other  forms  of  unreality.  Disillusion  was  his  trade. 
He  had  no  heroes,  and  he  saw  all  things  in  their  unheroic 
and  unromantic  aspect.  You  all  know  his  famous  carica- 
ture of  Ludovicus  Rex  inside  and  outside  of  his  court 
clothes :  a  most  majestic,  bewigged  and  beruffled  grand 
monarque:  and  then  a  spindle-shanked,  potbellied,  bald 
little  man  —  a  good  illustration  for  a  chapter  in  "Sartor 
Resartus."  The  ship  in  which  Thackeray  was  sent 
home  from  India,  a  boy  of  six,  touched  at  St.  Helena 
and  he  saw  Napoleon.     He  always  remembered  him  as 


THACKERAY'S  CENTENARY       197 

a  little  fat  man  in  a  suit  of  white  duck  and  a  palm  leaf 
hat. 

Thackeray  detested  pose  and  strut  and  sham  heroics. 
He  called  Byron  *'a  big  sulky  dandy."  "Lord  Byron," 
he  said,  "wrote  more  cant  .  .  .  than  any  poet  I  know  of. 
Think  of  the  'peasant  girls  with  dark  blue  eyes'  of  the 
Rhine  —  the  brown-faced,  flat-nosed,  thick-lipped,  dirty 
wenches  !  Think  of  '  filling  high  a  cup  of  Samian  wine ' : 
.  .  .  Byron  himself  always  drank  gin."  The  captain  in 
"The  White  Squall"  does  not  pace  the  deck  like  a  dark- 
browed  Corsair,  but  calls  "George,  some  brandy  and 
water!" 

And  this  reminds  me  of  Thackeray's  poetry.  Of  course 
one  who  held  this  attitude  toward  the  romantic  and  the 
heroic  could  not  be  a  poet  in  the  usual  sense.  Poetry 
holds  the  quintessential  truth,  but,  as  Bacon  says,  it 
"subdues  the  shows  of  things  to  the  desires  of  the  mind"  ; 
while  realism  clings  to  the  shows  of  things,  and  satire 
disenchants,  ravels  the  magic  web  which  the  imagination 
weaves.  Heine  was  both  satirist  and  poet,  but  he  was 
each  by  turns,  and  he  had  the  touch  of  ideality  which 
Thackeray  lacked.  Yet  Thackeray  wrote  poetry  and 
good  poetry  of  a  sort.  But  it  has  beauty  purely  of  senti- 
ment, never  of  the  imagination  that  transcends  the  fact. 
Take  the  famous  lines  with  which  this  same  "White 
Squall"  closes : 

"And  when,  its  force  expended. 
The  harmless  storm  was  ended. 
And  as  the  sunrise  splendid 

Came  blushing  o'er  the  sea; 
I  thought,  as  day  was  breaking. 
My  little  girls  were  waking 
And  smiling  and  making 

A  prayer  at  home  for  me." 


198  MODERN  ESSAYS 

And  such  is  the  quality  of  all  his  best  things  in  verse  — 
"The  Mahogany  Tree,"  "The  Ballad  of  Bouillebaisse," 
"The  End  of  the  Play  "  ;  a  mixture  of  humor  and  pensive- 
ness,  homely  fact  and  sincere  feeling. 

Another  modern  criticism  of  Thackeray  is  that  he  is 
always  interrupting  his  story  with  reflections.  This  fault, 
if  it  is  a  fault,  is  at  its  worst  in  "The  Newcomes,"  from 
which  a  whole  volume  of  essays  might  be  gathered.  The 
art  of  fiction  is  a  progressive  art  and  we  have  learned  a 
great  deal  from  the  objective  method  of  masters  like 
Turgenev,  Flaubert,  and  Maupassant.  I  am  free  to  con- 
fess, that,  while  I  still  enjoy  many  of  the  passages  in  which 
the  novelist  appears  as  chorus  and  showman,  I  do  find 
myself  more  impatient  of  them  than  I  used  to  be.  I  find 
myself  skipping  a  good  deal.  I  wonder  if  this  is  also  your 
experience.  I  am  not  sure,  however,  but  there  are  signs 
of  a  reaction  against  the  slender,  episodic,  short-story 
kind  of  fiction,  and  a  return  to  the  old-fashioned,  bio- 
graphical novel.  Mr.  Brownell  discusses  this  point  and 
says  that  "when  Thackeray  is  reproached  with  'bad  art' 
for  intruding  upon  his  scene,  the  reproach  is  chiefly  the 
recommendation  of  a  different  technique.  And  each 
man's  technique  is  his  own."  The  question,  he  acutely 
observes,  is  whether  Thackeray's  subjectivity  destroys 
illusion  or  deepens  it.  He  thinks  that  the  latter  is  true. 
I  will  not  argue  the  point  further  than  to  say  that,  whether 
clumsy  or  not,  Thackeray's  method  is  a  thoroughly  English 
method  and  has  its  roots  in  the  history  of  English  fiction. 
He  is  not  alone  in  it.  George  Eliot,  Hawthorne,  and 
Trollope  and  many  others  practice  it ;  and  he  learned  it 
from  his  master.  Fielding. 

Fifty  years  ago  it  was  quite  common  to  describe 
Thackeray   as   a    cynic,    a   charge  from    which    Shirley 


THACKERAY'S  CENTENARY       199 

Brooks  defended  him  in  the  well  known  verses  contributed 
to  "Punch"  after  the  great  novelist's  death.  Strange 
that  such  a  mistake  should  ever  have  been  made  about 
one  whose  kindness  is  as  manifest  in  his  books  as  in  his 
life :  "a  big,  fierce,  weeping  man,"  as  Carlyle  grotesquely 
describes  him :  a  writer  in  whom  we  find  to-day  even  an 
excess  of  sentiment  and  a  persistent  geniality  which  some- 
times irritates.  But  the  source  of  the  misapprehension  is 
not  far  to  seek.  His  satiric  and  disenchanting  eye  saw, 
with  merciless  clairvoyance,  the  disfigurements  of  human 
nature,  and  dwelt  upon  them  perhaps  unduly.     He  saw 

"How  very  weak  the  very  wise. 
How  very  small  the  very  great  are." 

Moreover,  as  with  many  other  humorists,  with  Thomas 
Hood  and  Mark  Twain  and  Abraham  Lincoln  (who  is 
one  of  the  foremost  American  humorists),  a  deep  melan- 
choly underlay  his  fun.  Vanitas  Vanitatum  is  the  last 
word  of  his  philosophy.  Evil  seemed  to  him  stronger  than 
good  and  death  better  than  life.  But  he  was  never  bitter : 
his  pen  was  driven  by  love,  not  hate.  Swift  was  the  true 
cynic,  the  true  misanthrope ;  and  Thackeray's  dislike 
of  him  has  led  him  into  some  injustice  in  his  chapter  on 
Swift  in  "The  English  Humorists."  And  therefore  I 
have  never  been  able  to  enjoy  "The  Luck  of  Barry  Lyn- 
don" which  has  the  almost  unanimous  praises  of  the 
critics.  The  hard,  artificial  irony  of  the  book ;  main- 
tained, of  course,  with  superb  consistency ;  seems  to  me 
uncharacteristic  of  its  author.  It  repels  and  wearies  me, 
as  does  its  model,  "Jonathan  Wild."  Swift's  irony 
I  enjoy  because  it  is  the  natural  expression  of  his  character. 
With  Thackeray  it  is  a  mask. 

Lastly  I  come  to  a  point  often  urged  against  Thackeray. 


200  MODERN  ESSAYS 

The  favorite  target  of  his  satire  was  the  snob.     His  lash 
was  always  being  laid  across  flunkeyism,  tuft  hunting,  the 
"mean  admiration  of  mean  things,"  such  as  wealth,  rank, 
fashion,  title,   birth.     Now,   it  is  said,  his  constant  ob- 
session   with    this    subject,    his    acute    consciousness    of 
social  distinctions,  prove  that  he  is  himself  one  of  the  class 
that  he  is  ridiculing.     "Letters  four  do  form  his  name," 
to  use  a  phrase  of  Dr.  Holmes,  who  is  accused  of  the  same 
weakness,    and,    I    think,    with    more    reason.        Well, 
Thackeray  owned  that  he  was  a  snob,  and  said  that  we 
are  all  of  us  snobs  in  a  greater  or  less  degree.     Snobbery 
is  the  fat  weed  of  a  complex  civilization,  where  grades  are 
unfixed,  where  some  families  are  going  down  and  others 
rising  in  the  world,  with  the  consequent  jealousies,  heart 
burnings,  and  social  struggles.     In  India,  I  take  it,  where 
a   rigid   caste   system   prevails,    there   are   no   snobs.     A 
Brahmin  may  refuse  to  eat  with  a  lower  caste  man,  whose 
touch  is  contamination,  but  he  does  not  despise  him  as 
the  gentleman  despises  the  cad,  as  the  man  who  eats  with 
a  fork  despises  the  man  who  eats  with  a  knife,  or  as  the 
educated  Englishman  despises  the   Cockney  who  drops 
his  h's,  or  the  Boston  Brahmin  the  Yankee  provincial 
who  says  hdow,  the  woman  who  collates,  and  the  gent 
who  wears  pants.     In  feudal  ages  the  lord  might  treat 
the  serf  like  a  beast  of  the  field.     The  modern  swell  does 
not  oppress  his  social  inferior :  he  only  calls  him  a  bounder. 
In  primitive  states  of  society  differences  in  riches,  station, 
power  are  accepted  quite  simply  :  they  do  not  form  ground 
for  envy  or  contempt.     I  used  to  be  puzzled  by  the  con- 
ventional epithet  applied  by  Homer  to  Eumaeus  —  "  the 
godlike  swineherd"  —  which  is  much  as  though  one  should 
say,  nowadays,  the  godlike  garbage  collector.     But  when 
Pope  writes 

"Honor  and  fame  from  no  condition  rise" 


THACKERAY'S  CENTENARY       201 

he  writes  a  lying  platitude.  In  the  eighteenth  century,  and 
in  the  twentieth,  honor  and  fame  do  rise  from  conditions. 
Now  in  the  presence  of  the  supreme  tragic  emotions,  of 
death,  of  suffering,  all  men  are  equal.  But  this  social 
inequality  is  the  region  of  the  comedy  of  manners,  and 
that  is  the  region  in  which  Thackeray's  comedy  moves  — 
the  comedie  mondaine,  if  not  the  full  comedie  humaine.  It 
is  a  world  of  convention,  and  he  is  at  home  in  it,  in  the 
world  and  a  citizen  of  the  world.  Of  course  it  is  not 
primitively  human.  Manners  are  a  convention :  but  so 
are  morals,  laws,  society,  the  state,  the  church.  I  sup- 
pose it  is  because  Thackeray  dwelt  contentedly  in  these 
conventions  and  rather  liked  them  although  he  laughed 
at  them,  that  Shaw  calls  him  an  enslaved  mind.  At  any 
rate,  this  is  what  Mr.  Howells  means  when  he  writes : 
"When  he  made  a  mock  of  snobbishness,  I  did  not  know 
but  snobbishness  was  something  that  might  be  reached 
and  cured  by  ridicule.  Now  I  know  that  so  long  as  we 
have  social  inequality  we  shall  have  snobs :  we  shall  have 
men  who  bully  and  truckle,  and  women  who  snub  and 
crawl.  I  know  that  it  is  futile  to  spurn  them,  or  lash 
them  for  trying  to  get  on  in  the  world,  and  that  the  world 
is  what  it  must  be  from  the  selfish  motives  which  underlie 
our  economic  life.  .  .  .  This  is  the  toxic  property  of  all 
Thackeray's  writing.  .  .  .  He  rails  at  the  order  of  things, 
but  he  imagines  nothing  different."  In  other  words, 
Thackeray  was  not  a  socialist,  as  Mr.  Shaw  is,  and  Mr. 
Howells,  and  as  we  are  all  coming  measurably  to  be. 
Meanwhile,  however,  equality  is  a  dream. 

All  his  biographers  are  agreed  that  Thackeray  was  hon- 
estly fond  of  mundane  advantages.  He  liked  the  conver- 
sation of  clever,  well  mannered  gentlemen,  and  the  society 
of  agreeable,  handsome,  well  dressed  women.     He  liked 


202  MODERN  ESSAYS 

to  go  to  fine  houses  :  liked  his  club,  and  was  gratified  when 
asked  to  dine  with  Sir  Robert  Peel  or  the  Duke  of  Devon- 
shire. Speaking  of  the  South  and  of  slavery,  he  confessed 
that  he  found  it  impossible  to  think  ill  of  people  who  gave 
you  such  good  claret. 

This  explains  his  love  of  Horace.  Venables  reports  that 
he  would  not  study  his  Latin  at  school.  But  he  certainly 
brought  away  with  him  from  the  Charterhouse,  or  from 
Trinity,  a  knowledge  of  Horace.  You  recall  what  delight- 
ful, punning  use  he  makes  of  the  lyric  Roman  at  every 
turn.  It  is  solvuntur  rupes  when  Col.  Newcome's  Indian 
fortune  melts  away ;  and  Rosa  sera  moratur  when  little 
Rose  is  slow  to  go  off  in  the  matrimonial  market.  Now 
Horace  was  eminently  a  man  of  the  world,  a  man  about 
town,  a  club  man,  a  gentle  satirist,  with  a  cheerful,  mun- 
dane philosophy  of  life,  just  touched  with  sadness  and 
regret.  He  was  the  poet  of  an  Augustan  age,  like  that 
English  Augustan  age  which  was  Thackeray's  favorite; 
social,  gregarious,  urban. 

I  never  saw  Thackeray.  I  was  a  boy  of  eight  when  he 
made  his  second  visit  to  America,  in  the  winter  of  1855-56, 
But  Arthur  HoUister,  who  graduated  at  Yale  in  1858,  told 
me  that  he  once  saw  Thackeray  walking  up  Chapel  Street, 
a  colossal  figure,  six  feet  four  inches  in  height,  peering 
through  his  big  glasses  with  that  expression  which  is  famil- 
iar to  you  in  his  portraits  and  in  his  charming  caricatures 
of  his  own  face.  This  seemed  to  bring  him  rather  near. 
But  I  think  the  nearest  that  I  ever  felt  to  his  bodily  pres- 
ence was  once  when  Mr.  Evarts  showed  me  a  copy  of 
Horace,  with  inserted  engravings,  which  Thackeray  had 
given  to  Sam  Ward  and  Ward  had  given  to  Evarts.  It  was 
a  copy  which  Thackeray  had  used  and  which  has  his 
autograph  on  the  fly  leaf. 


THACKERAY'S  CENTENARY       203 

And  this  mention  of  his  Latin  scholarship  induces  me  to 
close  with  an  anecdote  that  I  find  in  Melville's  "Life." 
He  says  himself  that  it  is  almost  too  good  to  be  true,  but 
it  illustrates  so  delightfully  certain  academic  attitudes, 
that  I  must  give  it,  authentic  or  not.  The  novelist  was 
to  lecture  at  Oxford  and  had  to  obtain  the  license  of  the 
Vice-Chancellor.  He  called  on  him  for  the  necessary 
permission  and  this  was  the  dialogue  that  ensued : 

V.  C.     Pray,  sir,  what  can  I  do  for  you  ? 

T.     My  name  is  Thackeray. 

V.  C.     So  I  see  by  this  card. 

T.     I  seek  permission  to  lecture  within  your  precincts. 

V.  C.  Ah !  You  are  a  lecturer :  what  subjects  do  you  undertake, 
religious  or  political  ? 

T.     Neither.     I  am  a  literary  man. 

V.  C.     Have  you  written  anything  ? 

T.     Yes,  I  am  the  author  of  "Vanity  Fair." 

V.  C.  I  presume,  a  dissenter  —  has  that  anything  to  do  with  Jno. 
Bunyan's  book  ? 

T.     Not  exactly  :   I  have  also  written  "Pendennis." 

V.  C.  Never  heard  of  these  works,  but  no  doubt  they  are  proper 
books. 

T.     I  have  also  contributed  to  "Punch." 

V.  C.  "Punch."  I  have  heard  of  that.  Is  it  not  a  ribald  publica- 
tion? 


1 


TENNYSON! 

BY 

Paul  Elmer  More 

In  the  treatment  of  an  author  such  as  Tennyson,  the  first  assumption 
is  that  every  reader  already  knows  and  has  thought  about  the  subject. 
There  is,  then,  none  of  the  attraction  of  novelty.  Logically,  therefore, 
as  Mr.  More  conceived  the  solution,  the  appeal  should  be  made,  not  by  a 
number  of  observations,  but  by  a  few  carefully  expanded.  His  thought 
/Jivides  into  the  main  positions:  (a)  Tennyson  represented  his  age, 
''  (6)  he  was  the  poet  of  compromise,  and  (c)  he  was  the  poet  of  insight. 
Each  of  these  in  turn  is  very  carefully  and  elaborately  defined  and  ex- 
plained. For  example,  to  bring  out  the  first,  Tennyson  is  shown  in  his 
relation  to  the  men  of  the  time.  This  is  done  by  anecdote,  by  quotation 
from  the  poet  himself,  by  quotation  from  the  work  of  others,  by  citations 
from  diaries,  etc.  The  result  is  that  not  only  is  the  essay  delightful 
reading  itself,  but  one  lays  it  aside  with  a  feeling  of  conviction.  By 
this  very  elaboration,  the  writer  shows  himself  impartial,  sensitive  both 
to  Tennyson's  faults  as  well  as  his  virtues.  By  his  abundant  citations 
from  other  poets  he  both  explains  his  own  conceptions  and  gives  the 
reader  a  standard  of  judgment.  Consequently  one  feels  implicit  con- 
fidence in  his  final  decision. 

Whatever  changes  may  occur  in  the  fame  of  Tennyson 
—  and  undoubtedly  at  the  present  hour  it  is  passing  into  a 
kind  of  obscuration  —  he  can  never  be  deprived  of  the 
honour  of  representing,  more  almost  than  any  other  single 
poet  of  England,  unless  it  be  Dryden,  a  whole  period  of 
national  life.     Tennyson  is  the  Victorian  age.     His  Poems, 

iProm  "The  Shelburne  E.ssays"  (seventh  series),  by  permission  of 
the  author  and  of  the  publishers,  G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons. 

204 


TENNYSON  205 

Chiefly  Lyrical  had  been  published  only  seven  years  when 
the  Queen  came  to  the  throne  in  1837;  he  succeeded 
Wordsworth  as  poet-laureate  in  1850 ;  and  from  that  time 
to  his  death  in  1892  he  was  the  official  voice  of  the  Court 
and  the  acknowledged  spokesman  of  those  who  were  lead- 
ing the  people  through  that  long  period  of  transition. 
There  was  something  typical  of  the  heart  of  England  in 
his  birth  and  childhood.  For  what  better  nursery  can 
be  imagined  for  such  a  poet  than  one  of  those  village 
rectories  where  the  ancient  traditions  of  the  land  are  pre- 
served with  religious  reverence  and  tlie  pride  of  station  is 
unaccompanied  by  the  vanity  of  wealth?  And  what 
scenery  could  be  more  appropriate  than  the  country  of 
Lincolnshire,  rolling  up  from  the  salt  marshes  of  the  sea 
and  from  the  low  dunes,  "where  the  long  breakers  fall 
with  a  heavy  clap  and  spread  in  a  curdling  blanket  of 
seething  foam  over  the  level  sands"?  Tennyson  never 
forgot  those  sights  and  sounds  of  his  childhood;  their 
shadows  and  echoes  are  in  all  his  later  verse. 

And  the  surroundings  of  his  early  manhood  were  equally 
characteristic.  In  1828  he  went  to  Cambridge  and  was 
matriculated  at  Trinity  College,  leaving  in  1831  without  a 
degree.  Those  were  years  when  the  spirit  stirred  in  many 
lands.  In  France  the  romantic  movement,  with  Victor 
Hugo  as  prophet  and  Sainte-Beuve  as  interpreter,  was  be- 
ginning its  career  of  high-handed  victory.  In  England  it 
was  a  time  of  reform,  felt  at  the  two  universities  as  power- 
fully as  in  Parliament.  At  Oxford,  Newman  and  Keble  and 
Ilurrell  Fronde  were  preparing  the  great  reintegration  of 
religion  and  the  imagination  which  runs  througli  the  cen- 
tury parallel  and  hostile  to  the  main  current  of  ideas.  In 
Tennyson's  university  a  group  of  young  men  were  brood- 
ing over  strange  and  lofty  liberties,  and  were    dreaming 


206  MODERN  ESSAYS 

vaguely  of  a  new  guide  born  of  the  union  of  idealism  and 
science.  A  few  of  these  more  ardent  minds  had  banded 
together  as  the  Apostles,  a  secret  debating  society  which 
afterwards  became  famous  from  the  achievement  of  its 
members.  Among  the  strongest  of  the  brotherhood  was 
Arthur  Henry  Hallam,  whose  sudden  death  at  Vienna 
caused  grief  to  many  friends,  and  to  Tennyson  the  long 
sorrow  which,  with  the  vexatious  problems  of  human 
mortality,  winds  in  and  out  through  the  cantos  of  In 
Memoriam.  The  meaning  of  this  loss  cannot  be  measured 
by  the  scanty  remains  of  Hallam's  own  writings.  He 
stands  with  John  Sterling  and  Hurrell  Fronde  among  the 
inheritors  of  unfulfilled  renown  —  young  men,  whose  con- 
fidence in  life  was,  in  those  aspiring  days,  accounted  as 
achievement,  and  whose  early  death,  before  the  inevitable 
sordor  of  wordly  concession  touched  their  faces,  crowned 
them  with  imperishable  glory.  So  the  memory  of  his 
friend  became  to  Tennyson  in  a  few  years  a  symbol  of 
hopes  for  him  and  for  the  world  frustrate.  He  revisits 
college  and  goes  to  see  the  rooms  where  Hallam  dwelt ; 
but,  hearing  only  the  clapping  of  hands  and  the  crashing 
of  glass,  thinks  of  the  days  when  he  and  his  circle  held  de- 
bate, and  would  listen  to  Hallam's  master  words : 

.  .  .  Who,  but  hung  to  hear 
The  rapt  oration  flowing  free 

From  point  to  point,  with  power  and  grace 

And  music  in  the  bounds  of  haw, 

To  those  conclusions  when  we  saw 
The  God  within  him  hght  his  face. 

And  seem  to  Hf t  the  form,  and  glow 

In  azure  orbits  heavenly  wise; 

And  over  those  ethereal  eyes 
The  bar  of  Michael  Angelo. 


TENNYSON  207 

Those  who  at  college  have  felt  the  power  of  such  a  guiding 
friendship  will  tell  you  it  is  the  fairest  and  most  enduring 
part  of  education.     I  myself  know. 

To  Tennyson  that  high  comradeship  of  youth  and  those 
generous  ideals  lasted  as  one  of  the  forces  that  made  him 
the  typical  poet  of  the  age.  You  may  read  through  the 
memoirs  of  the  period,  and  almost  always  you  will  meet 
him  somewhere  moving  among  other  men  with  the  mark 
of  the  Muses  upon  him,  as  a  bard  in  the  old  daj^s  stood 
amid  lords  and  warriors  with  the  visible  insignia  of  his 
calling  in  his  hands  and  on  his  brow  —  sacra  ferens. 
Wliether  in  his  free-footed  and  wandering  earlier  years, 
or  as  the  prosperous  householder  in  his  beautiful  homes 
at  Farringford  on  the  Isle  of  Wight  and  at  Aldworth  on 
Blackdown,  Surrey,  "overlooking  the  vast  expanses  of 
light  and  shadow,  golden  cornfields,  blue  distances"  — 
wherever  you  see  him,  he  is  the  same  bearer  of  conscious 
inspiration.  Now  we  have  a  glimpse  of  him  with  Fitz- 
Gerald,  visiting  James  Spedding  in  his  home  in  the  Lake 
country  —  Spedding  who  devoted  a  lifetime  to  the  white- 
washing of  Chancellor  Bacon,  he  of  the  "venerable  fore- 
head"; "No  wonder,"  said  his  waggish  friend,  "that  no 
hair  can  grow  at  such  an  altitude ;  no  wonder  his  view 
of  Bacon's  virtue  is  so  rarefied  that  the  common  consciences 
of  men  cannot  endure  it. "  The  three  young  men,  we  know, 
discoursed  endlessly  and  enthusiastically  about  the  canons 
of  poetry,  while  the  elder  Spedding,  a  staunch  squire  of 
the  land  who  "had  seen  enough  of  the  trade  of  poets  not 
to  like  them"  —  Shelley  and  Coleridge  and  Southey  and 
Wordsworth  —  listened  with  ill-concealed  impatience.  It 
was  at  this  time,  probably,  that  Tennyson  and  FitzGerald 
held  a  contest  as  to  which  could  produce  the  worst  W^ords- 
worthian  line,  with  the  terrible  example  claimed  by  both 


208  MODERN  ESSAYS 

of  them:  "A  Mr.  Wilkinson,  a  clergyman."  Again 
Tennyson  is  seen  with  the  same  friends  in  London,  "very 
droll,  and  very  awkward ;  and  much  sitting  up  of  nights 
till  two  or  three  in  the  morning  with  pipes  in  our  mouths  : 
at  which  good  hour  we  would  get  Alfred  to  give  us  some 
of  his  magic  music,  which  he  does  between  growling  and 
smoking;  and  so  to  bed."  Or  he  is  at  Carlyle's  house  at 
Chelsea,  with  "Jack  and  a  friend  named  Darwin,  both 
admirers  of  Alfred's,"  still  talking  and  interminably  smok- 
ing —  "one  of  the  powerfullest  smokers  I  have  ever  worked 
along  with  in  that  department,"  writes  the  experienced 
host.  Or  in  the  Isle  of  Wight,  he  is  wandering  one  stormy 
night  with  Moncure  Daniel  Conway,  while  "his  deep  bass 
voice  came  through  the  congenial  darkness  like  mirthful 
thunder." 

With  another  guest,  perhaps,  we  go  up-stairs  to  the 
poet's  den  on  the  top-story  at  Farringford,  where  in  safe 
seclusion  he  can  pour  out  his  stores  of  deep  questioning 
and  Rabelaisian  anecdote ;  or  climb  still  higher,  up  a  lad- 
der to  the  leads,  where  he  was  wont  to  go  to  contemplate 
the  heavens,  and  whence  one  night,  like  Plato's  luckless 
philosopher,  he  fell  down  the  hatch ;  whereat  a  brother 
bard  quoted  to  him:  "A  certain  star  shot  madly  from 
his  sphere."  Such  stories  could  be  multiplied  endlessly. 
The  best  of  all  pictures  of  him  is  that  written  down 
in  the  diary  of  the  Rev.  R.  S.  Hawker,  the  strange 
vicar  of  Morwenstow,  near  Tintagel,  the  birthplace  of 
the  legendary  Arthur,  whither  Tennyson  had  come  in 
1848  to  make  himself  familiar  with  the  country  of  the 
Idylls. 

It  is  observable  in  all  these  accounts  that  the  great  per- 
sonality of  Tennyson,  with  his  contempt  for  little  conven- 
tions, impressed  those  who  lived  with  him  as  if  he  possessed 


TENNYSON  209 

some  extraordinary  daemonic  power  not  granted  to  lesser 
men.  And  his  conversation  was  like  his  figure.  It  is 
agreeable,  when  we  consider  certain  finical  over-nice  quali- 
ties of  his  verse,  to  know  that  his  talk  was  racy  with 
strong,  downright  Saxon  words ;  that,  like  our  Lincoln, 
he  could  give  and  take  deep  draughts  of  Pantagruelian 
mirth.  I  confess  that  it  does  not  displease  me  to  touch 
this  vein  of  earthy  coarseness  in  the  man.  But  I  like  also 
to  hear  that  his  mind  rose  more  habitually  from  the  soil 
to  the  finer  regions  of  poetry  and  religion.  In  a  hundred 
recorded  conversations  you  will  find  him  at  close  grips 
with  the  great  giants  of  doubt  and  materialism,  which 
then,  as  in  the  caverns  and  fastnesses  of  old  fable,  were 
breeding  in  every  scientific  workshop  and  stalking  thence 
over  the  land.  How  often  you  will  find  him,  when  these 
questions  are  discussed,  facing  them  calmly,  and  then 
ending  all  with  an  expression  of  unalterable  faith  in  the 
spirit-forces  that  blow  like  one  of  his  mystic  winds  about 
the  solid  earth ;  speaking  words  which  sound  common- 
place enough  in  print  but  which,  with  his  manner  and 
voice,  seem  to  have  affected  his  hearers  as  if  they  had  been 
surprised  by  a  tongue  of  revelation. 

Still  oftener  his  talk  was  of  the  poets  and  their  work. 
Sometimes  it  was  long  discourse  and  rich  comparison. 
Other  times  it  was  a  flashing  comment  on  the  proper 
emphasis  or  cadence  of  a  line,  as  on  that  day  when  he 
visited  Lyme  Regis  with  William  Allingham,  and,  sitting 
on  the  wall  of  the  Cobb,  listened  to  the  passage  out  of 
Persuasion  where  Louisa  Mulgrave  hurts  her  ankle.  And 
then,  continues  Allingham,  we 

.  .  .  take  a  field-path  that  brings  us  to  Devonshire  Hedge  and  past 
that  boundry  into  Devon.     Lovely  fields,  an  underclifiF  with  tumbled 
heaps  of   verdure,   honeysuckle,   hawthorns,  and  higher  trees.     Rocks 
P 


210  MODERN  ESSAYS 

peeping  through  the  sward,  in  which  I  peculiarly  delight,  reminding  me 
of  the  West  of  Ireland.     I  quote — - 

"Bowery  hollows  crowned  with  summer  sea." 

T.  (as  usual),  "  You  don't  say  it  properly  "  —  and  repeats  it  in  his  own 
sonorous  manner,  lingering  with  solemn  sweetness  on  every  vowel 
sound,  —  a  peculiar  incomplete  cadence  at  the  end. 

It  is  but  one  example  among  a  thousand  of  Tennyson's  supreme  care 
for  the  sound  of  a  word  and  for  the  true  melody  of  a  verse.  "  When 
Tennyson  finds  anything  in  poetry  that  touches  him,"  says  Coventry 
Patmore,  "not  pathos,  but  a  happy  line  or  epithet  —  the  tears  come 
into  his  eyes." 

But  it  was  as  reciter  of  his  own  poems  that  he  main- 
tained in  our  modern  prosaic  society  the  conscious  office 
of  bard.  He  read  on  all  occasions  and  to  all  sorts  of 
people,  frankly  and  seriously,  rolling  out  his  verses  with 
the  rhythm  and  magnificent  emphasis  that  poets  love  to 
bestow  on  their  own  works.  Nor  can  I  recall  a  single 
instance  in  which  the  listener  was  troubled  by  our  tedious 
sense  of  humour  —  not  even  when,  on  the  celebrated  voyage 
to  Copenhagen  with  Gladstone  and  a  party  of  royalties, 
Tennyson  patted  time  to  one  of  his  poems  on  the  shoulder 
of  an  unknown  lady,  whom  he  afterwards  discovered  to 
be  the  Empress  of  all  the  Russias.  Best  of  all  these 
accounts  is  that  of  Mrs.  J.  H.  Shorthouse,  who,  with 
her  husband,  the  novelist,  visited  the  poet  at  Farringford  : 

Then  the  moon  rose,  and  through  the  great  cedar  on  the  lawn  we  saw 
its  light  approach  and  fill  the  room,  and  when  the  gentlemen  came  in. 
and  Lady  Tennyson  returned  to  her  sofa,  we  had  the  great  pleasure  of 
hearing  Lord  Tennyson  read  three  of  his  favourite  poems  —  the  Ode  to 
the  Duke  of  Wellington,  Blow,  Bugle,  Blow,  and  Maud.  Only  the  candles 
by  his  side  lit  up  the  book  of  poems  from  which  he  read ;  the  rest  of  the 
room  was  flooded  by  moonlight.  .  .  .  Many  of  Lord  Tennyson's  visitors 
have  described  his  reading  of  poetry,  varying  of  course,  with  their  own 


TENNYSON  211 

tastes  and  sympathies.  To  me,  as  we  sat  in  the  moonlight  listening  to 
the  words  we  loved,  I  seemed  to  nnxiise  the  scenes  of  very  olden  days 
when  the  bards  improvised  their  own  lays  in  great  baronial  halls  to  en- 
raptured listeners. 

Nothing  could  better  characterise  the  position  of  Tenny- 
son as  the  official  voice  of  the  land,  turning  its  hard  affairs 
and  shrewd  debates  into  the  glamour  of  music  before 
flattered  eyes  and  ears.  He  was  beloved  of  the  Queen 
and  the  Prince  Consort.  Men  of  science  like  Huxley  were 
"  impressed  with  the  Doric  beauty"  of  his  dialect  poems  ; 
or,  like  Herschel,  Owen,  and  Tyndall,  admired  him  "for 
the  eagerness  with  which  he  welcomed  all  the  latest  scien- 
tific discoveries,  and  for  his  trust  in  truth."  Serious 
judges  cited  him  on  the  bench,  as  did  Lord  Bowen  when, 
being  compelled  to  preside  over  an  admiralty  case,  he 
ended  an  apology  to  counsel  for  his  inexperience  with  the 
punning  quotation : 

And  may  there  be  no  moaning  at  the  Bar, 
When  I  put  out  to  sea. 

In  all  this  chorus  of  acceptance  there  is  a  single  strangely 
significant  discord.  Edward  FitzGerald,  as  we  have  seen, 
was  one  of  Tennyson's  warmest  friends  ;  of  all  the  great  men 
of  his  acquaintance,  and  he  knew  the  greatest,  Tennyson 
alone  overawed  him.  "  I  must,  however,  say  further," 
he  once  writes,  after  visiting  with  Tennyson,  "  that  I  felt 
what  Charles  Lamb  describes,  a  sense  of  depression  at  times 
from  the  overshadowing  of  a  so  much  more  lofty  intellect 
than  my  own  :  this  (though  it  may  seem  vain  to  say  so)  I 
never  experienced  before,  though  I  have  often  been  with 
much  greater  intellects  :  but  I  could  not  be  mistaken  in  the 
universality  of  his  mind."  FitzGerald  was  one  of  those 
who  first  recognized  Tennyson's  poetic  genius ;   but  after 


212  MODERN  ESSAYS 

a  while  there  comes  a  change  in  the  tone  of  his  comment. 
In  Memoriam,  which  he  read  in  manuscript  before  it  was 
puhlishod,  he  cannot  away  with;  it  has  to  him  the  "air 
of  being  evolved  by  a  Poetical  Machine  of  the  highest 
order  " ;  and  from  that  time  his  letters  contain  frequent 
hints  of  dissatisfaction.  It  was  not  that  Tennyson's  later 
works  were  inferior  to  his  earlier,  but  that  somehow  he 
seems  to  have  felt,  as  we  to-day  are  likely  to  feel,  a  dis- 
parity between  the  imposing  genius  of  the  man  himself 
and  these  rather  nerveless  elegies  and  rather  vapid  tales 
like  The  Princess.  He  cries  out  once  upon  "the  cursed 
inactivity  "  of  the  nineteenth  century  for  spoiling  his 
poet,  coming  close  to,  but  not  quite  touching,  the  real 
reason  of  his  discontent.  That  determined  recluse  of 
Little  Grange,  who,  in  the  silent  night  hours,  loved  to 
walk  about  the  flat  Suffolk  lanes,  among  the  shadows  of 
the  windmills  that  reminded  him  of  his  beloved  Don 
Quixote ;  who,  as  the  years  passed,  could  scarcely  be 
got  to  visit  his  friends  at  all,  but  wrote  to  them  letters 
of  quaint  and  wistful  tenderness  —  he  alone  among  the 
busy,  anxious  Victorians,  so  far  as  I  know  them,  stood 
entirely  aloof  from  the  currents  of  the  hour,  judging 
men  and  things  from  the  larger  circles  of  time ;  he  alone 
was  completely  emancipated  from  the  illusions  of  the 
present,  and  this  is  the  secret  of  the  grave,  pathetic 
wisdom  that  so  fascinates  us  in  his  correspondence.  And 
so  the  very  fact  that  Tennyson  was  the  mouthpiece  of 
his  generation,  with  the  limitations  that  such  a  charac- 
ter implies,  cooled  the  praise  of  our  disillusioned  philoso- 
pher, just  as  it  warmed  the  enthusiasm  of  more  engaged 
minds. 

One  is  impressed  by  this  quality  of  Tennyson's  talent 
as  one  goes  through  his  works  anew  in  the  Eversley 


TENNYSON  213 

edition^  that  has  just  been  published,  with  notes  by  the 
poet  and  by  the  poet's  son.  It  is  useless  to  deny  that  to  a 
later  taste  much  of  this  writing  seems  an  insubstantial 
fabric ;  that  it  has  many  of  the  qualities  that  stamp  the 
distinctly  Victorian  creations  as  provincial  and  ephemeral. 
There  is  upon  it,  first  of  all,  the  mark  of  prettiness,  that 
prettiness  which  has  been,  and  still  is,  the  bane  of  British 
art.  Look  through  collections  of  the  work  of  Landseer 
and  Birket  Foster  and  Sir  John  Everett  Millais,  and 
others  of  that  group,  and  observe  its  quality  of  "guileless 
beauty,"  as  Holman  Hunt  calls  it,  or  innocuous  senti- 
mentality as  it  seems  to  us.  These  scenes  of  meek  love- 
making,  of  tender  home-partings  and  reconciliations,  of 
children  floating  down  a  stream  in  their  cradle  with  perhaps 
a  kitten  peering  into  the  water  —  it  is  not  their  morality 
that  offends  us,  far  from  that,  but  their  deliberate  blinking 
of  what  makes  life  real  and,  in  the  higher  sense  of  the  word, 
beautiful.  You  will  find  this  same  prettiness  in  many  of 
Tennyson's  early  productions,  such  as  The  May  Queen  and 
Dora  and  The  Miller's  Daughter.  Or  take  a  more  preten- 
tious poem,  such  as  Enoch  Arden,  and  compare  it  with  a 
similar  tale  from  Crabbe ;  set  Tennyson's  picture  of  the 
three  children,  "Annie  Lee,  the  prettiest  little  damsel  in 
the  port,"  etc.,  beside  one  of  the  coast  scenes  of  the  earlier 
poet's  Aldworth,  and  you  will  be  struck  by  the  difference 
between  the  beribboned  daintiness  of  the  one  and  the 
naked  strength,  as  of  a  Dutch  genre  painting,  of  the  other. 
Or  go  still  higher,  and  consider  some  of  the  scenes  of  the 
Idylls.  In  its  own  kind  Launcelot  and  Elaine  is  certainly 
a  noble  work,  yet  somehow  to  all  its  charm  there  still 

^  The  Works  of  Alfred  Lord  Tennyson.  In  six  volumes.  The  Eversley 
Edition.  Annotated  by  Alfred  Lord  Tennyson,  edited  by  Hallam  Lord 
Tennyson.     New  York :   The  Macmillan  Company,  1908. 


214  MODERN   ESSAYS 

clings  that  taint  of  prettiness,  which  is  a  different  thing 
altogether.  I  read  the  words  of  Gawain  to  the  lily  maid 
of  Astolat : 

"Nay,  by  mine  head,"  said  he, 
"I  lose  it,  as  we  lose  the  lark  in  heaven, 
O,  damsel,  in  the  light  of  your  blue  eyes." 

'  Tis  a  sweet  compliment,  but  I  remember  the  same  meta- 
phor in  an  old  play  : 

Once  a  young  lark 
Sat  on  thy  hand,  and  gazing  on  thine  eyes 
Mounted  and  sung,  thinking  them  moving  skies,  — 

and  by  comparison  I  seem  again  to  note  in  Tennyson's  lines 
the  something  false  we  designate  as  Victorian.  There  is  in 
the  same  poem  another  scene,  one  of  the  most  picturesque 
in  all  the  Idylls,  where  Launcelot  and  Elaine's  brother 
ride  away  from  the  ancient  castle  and  the  lily  maid  to 
join  the  tournament : 

She  stay'd  a  minute. 
Then  made  a  sudden  step  to  the  gate,  and  there  — 
Her  bright  hair  blown  about  the  serious  face 
Yet  rosy-kindled  with  her  brother's  kiss  — 
Paused  by  the  gateway,  standing  near  the  shield 
In  silence,  while  she  watch'd  their  arms  far-oEF 
Sparkle,  until  they  dipt  below  the  downs. 

One  sees  it  all  —  the  sentimental  maiden  at  the  arch, 
gazing  with  shaded  eyes  after  the  two  departing  knights, 
while  some  flowering  vine  of  an  English  summer  droops 
from  the  stones  about  her  slender  form  ;  one  sees  it,  but 
again  it  is  a  painting  on  the  walls  of  the  Burlington  House 
rather  than  the  reality  of  a  more  virile  art. 

There  is  not  a  little  of  this  effeminate  grace  in  the  long 


TENNYSON  215 

elegy  In  Memoriam,  which  above  any  other  single  poem, 
I  think,  seemed  to  the  men  of  the  Victorian  age  to  express 
the  melancholy  and  the  beauty  of  life.  I  find  a  trace  of 
it  even  in  the  more  exquisite  sections,  in  the  nineteenth 
for  instance : 

The  Danube  to  the  Severn  gave 

The  darken'd  heart  that  beat  no  more; 
They  laid  him  by  the  pleasant  shore. 

And  in  the  hearing  of  the  wave. 

There  twice  a  day  the  Severn  fills ; 

The  salt  sea-water  passes  by, 

And  hushes  half  the  babbling  Wye, 
And  makes  a  silence  in  the  hills. 

The  imagery  of  grief's  home  could  not  be  more  melodi- 
ously uttered,  and  it  is  close  to  the  facts.  "From  the 
Graveyard,"  writes  the  editor  of  the  EversJey  edition, 
"you  can  hear  the  music  of  the  tide  as  it  washes  against 
the  low  cliffs  not  a  hundred  yards  away  " ;  and  the  poet 
himself  adds  in  the  note :  "Taken  from  my  own  observa- 
tion —  the  rapids  of  the  Wye  are  stilled  by  the  incoming 
sea."     The  application  is  like  the  image : 

The  Wye  is  hush'd  nor  moved  along. 
And  hush'd  my  deepest  grief  of  all. 
When  fiird  with  tears  that  cannot  fall, 

I  brim  with  sorrow  drowning  song. 

The  tide  flows  down,  the  wave  again 

Is  vocal  in  its  wooded  walls; 

My  deeper  anguish  also  falls. 
And  I  can  speak  a  little  then. 

Such  was  the  music  that  Tennyson  learned  from  the  Wye 
at  Tintern  Abbey,  where,  as  the  editor  tells  us,  the  verses 


216  MODERN   ESSAYS 

were  actually  composed.  Exquisitely  refined  and  curious, 
no  doubt ;  but  the  editor's  note  sets  us  involuntarily  to 
thinking  of  other  Lines  Composed  a  Few  Miles  Above  Tin- 
tern  Abbey,  where  Wordsworth  heard  "These  waters,  roll- 
ing from  their  inland  springs,  with  a  sweet  inland  mur- 
mur," and  from  that  sound  conjectured  "the  still,  sad 
music  of  humanity."  It  is  not  a  question  here  of  phi- 
losophy but  of  art,  and  no  one  can  fail  to  note  the  thinness 
of  Tennyson's  style  compared  with  the  larger  harmonies 
of  Wordsworth. 

But  however  much  the  prettiness  of  In  Memoriam 
caught  the  ears  of  the  sentimental,  it  was  another  quality 
which  won  the  applause  of  the  greater  Victorians.  There 
is  an  interesting  letter  given  among  the  editor's  notes, 
showing  how  the  men  who  were  leading  English  thought 
in  those  days  felt  toward  the  new  poem,  and  in  particular 
toward  one  of  its  religious  sections  : 

If  e'er  when  faith  had  faU'n  asleep, 

I  heard  a  voice  "  beUeve  no  more  " 

And  heard  an  ever-breaking  shore 
And  tumbled  in  the  Godless  deep ; 

A  warmth  within  the  breast  would  melt 

The  freezing  reason's  colder  part. 

And  like  a  man  in  wrath  the  heart 
Stood  up  and  answer' d  "I  have  felt." 

No,  like  a  child  in  doubt  and  fear : 

But  that  blind  clamour  made  me  wise; 
Then  was  I  as  a  child  that  cries. 

But,  crying,  knows  his  father  near. 

"These  lines,"  writes  Prof.  Henry  Sidgwuck  in  the  letter 
referred  to  —  "these  Hues  I  can  never  read  without  tears. 
I  fool  in  them  the  indestructible  and  inahenable  minimum 
of  faith  which  humanity  cannot  give  up  because  it  is 


TENNYSON  217 

necessary  for  life  ;  and  which  I  know  that  I,  at  least  so 
far  as  the  man  in  me  is  deeper  than  the  methodical  thinker, 
cannot  give  up."  Now  Sidgwick  was  no  ordinary  man. 
He  was  in  fact  one  of  the  keenest  and  hardest-headed 
thinkers  of  those  days,  one  of  the  leaders  in  the  philosophi- 
cal and  economical  revolution  then  taking  place  ;  and  these 
tears  of  his  were  no  cheap  contribution  of  sentiment,  but 
rose  from  the  deepest  wells  of  trouble.  Many  men  still 
living  can  remember  the  dismay  and  the  sense  of  home- 
lessness  that  fell  upon  the  trusting  mind  of  England  when 
it  became  aware  of  a  growing  hostility  between  the  new 
school  of  science  and  the  established  creed.  When  Arthur 
Hallam  died  in  1833,  Darwin  was  making  his  memorable 
voyage  of  investigation  on  the  Beagle,  and  while  Tennyson 
was  elaborating  his  grief  in  long-linked  sweetness,  Darwin 
was  writing  that  "first  note-book  of  Transmutation  of 
Species"  which  was  developed  into  the  Origin  of  Species  of 
1859.  The  alarm  of  the  Church  over  this  assimilation  of 
man  and  monkey,  the  bitter  fight  between  Huxley  and  Wil- 
berforce  and  between  Huxley  and  Gladstone  — ■  all  this  is 
well  known,  though  the  tumult  of  the  fray  begins  to  sound 
in  younger  ears  as  distant  as  the  battles  about  Troy. 
Meanwhile  within  the  Church  itself  the  scientific  criticism 
of  sources  was  working  a  havoc  no  less  dreaded  than  the 
attacks  from  without.  This  breach  within  the  walls, 
though  long  a-making,  first  became  generally  visible  by 
the  publication  of  the  famous  Essays  and  Reviews  in  1860, 
which,  harmless  as  the  book  now  seems,  kept  two  of  its 
principal  contributors,  Jowett  and  Mark  Pattison,  for 
years  from  university  promotion. 

To  these  currents  of  thought  Tennyson  was  quickly 
responsive.  Without  hesitation  he  accepted  the  new 
point  of  view  for  his  In  Memoriam,  and  those  who  were 


218  MODERN  ESSAYS 

leading  the  revolution  felt  this  and  welcomed  enthusiasti- 
cally a  recruit  from  the  writers  of  the  imagination  who 
were  commonly  against  them.  "Wordsworth's  Attitude 
towards  Nature,"  says  Professor  Sidgwick,  in  the  same 
letter  to  Tennyson's  son,  "was  one  that,  so  to  say,  left 
Science  unregarded  :  the  Nature  for  which  Wordsworth 
stirred  our  feeUngs  was  Nature  as  known  by  simple  obser- 
vation and  interpreted  by  religious  and  sympathetic  in- 
tuition. But  for  your  father  the  physical  w^orld  is  always 
the  world  as  known  to  us  through  physical  science ;  the 
scientific  view^  of  it  dominates  his  thoughts  about  it." 
And  Professor  Sidgwick  is  perfectly  right.  It  is  unneces- 
sary to  point  out  the  many  passages  of  In  Memoriam  in 
which  the  law  of  evolution,  the  survival  of  the  fittest,  and 
man's  kinship  to  the  ape,  were  clearly  hinted  before  Darwin 
had  definitely  formulated  them  in  his  epoch-making  book. 
What  more  impressed  men  like  Sidgwick  was  the  fact  that 
Tennyson  felt  with  them  the  terrifying  doubts  awakened  by 
this  conception  of  man  as  part  of  a  vast,  unfeeling,  blind 
mechanism,  but  still  clung  to  "the  indestructible  and  in- 
alienable minimum  of  faith  which  humanity  cannot  give  up 
because  it  is  necessary  for  life."  And  Tennyson,  and  this  is 
the  view  to  be  emphasised,  found  this  minimum  of  faith,  not 
outside  of  the  new  science  but  at  its  very  heart.  He  does, 
indeed,  cry  out  at  times  against  the  harsher  hypothesis, 
declaring  that  we  are  not  "magnetic  mockeries"  — 

Not  only  cunning  casts  in  clay : 

Let  Science  prove  we  are,  and  then 

What  matters  Science  unto  men, 
At  least  to  me  ?     I  would  not  stay. 

Let  him,  the  wiser  man  who  springs 
Hereafter,  up  from  childhood  shape 
His  action  like  the  greater  ape. 

But  I  was  horn  to  other  things. 


TENNYSON  219 

That  note  is  heard  in  In  Memoriam,  but  the  gist  of 
Tennyson's  faith,  and  what  made  him  the  spokesman  of 
the  age,  was  in  a  bold  completion  of  evolution  by  the 
theory  of  indefinite  progress  and  by  a  vision  of  some 
magnificent  consummation  wherein  the  sacrifices  and  the 
waste  and  the  pain  of  the  present  were  to  be  compensated 
somehow,  somewhere,  somewhen  —  who  shall  say  ? 

Oh  yet  we  trust  that  somehow  good 

Will  be  the  final  goal  of  ill, 

To  pangs  of  nature,  sins  of  will. 
Defects  of  doubt,  and  taints  of  blood ; 

That  nothing  walks  with  aimless  feet ; 

That  not  one  life  shall  be  destroy'd. 

Or  cast  as  rubbish  to  the  void. 
When  God  hath  made  the  pile  complete; 

That  not  a  worm  is  cloven  in  vain ; 

That  not  a  moth  with  vain  desire 

Is  shrivell'd  in  a  fruitless  fire. 
Or  but  subserves  another's  gain. 

And  the  end  of  the  poem  is  the  climax  of  this  comfortable 

belief : 

That  God,  which  ever  lives  and  loves. 

One  God,  one  law,  one  element. 

And  one  far-off  divine  event. 
To  which  the  whole  creation  moves. 

That  reconcilation  of  faith  and  science,  this  discovery 
of  a  father  near  at  hand  within  the  inexorable  law  of 
evolution,  this  vision  of  an  eternal  state  to  be  reached  in 
the  progress  of  time  —  all  this  is  what  we  call  the  Vic- 
torian compromise.  The  prettiness  which  we  found  so 
characteristic  of  Victorian  painting  and  of  Tennyson's 
non-religious  verse  was  indeed  only  another  phase  of 
the  same  compromise.  The  imperious  sense  of  beauty, 
which  has  led  the  great  visionaries  out  of  the  world  and 


220  MODERN  ESSAYS 

which  Tennyson  portrayed  trembh'ngly  in  his  Palace  of 
Art,  was  felt  by  the  Victorians  to  be  dangerous  to  the 
British  sentiment  of  the  home,  and  motherhood,  and 
girlish  innocence,  and  so  they  rested  in  the  middle  ground 
of  prettiness  where  beauty  and  innocent  sentiment  might 
meet.  Here  also  they  held  to  that  "indestructible  and 
inalienable  minimum  of  faith  which  humanity"  —  British 
humanity  at  least  in  those  years  —  could  not  give  up. 
And  men  like  Professor  Sidgwick  were  stirred  to  the  heart 
by  this  compromise,  and  wept. 

Undoubtedly  the  fame  of  Tennyson  in  his  own  day  was 
due  largely  to  his  expression  of  what  may  be  called  the 
official  philosophy,  but  it  is  a  question  whether  this  very 
trait  has  not  weakened  his  hold  upon  a  later  generation ; 
whether,  for  instance,  the  stoic  resolve  and  self-determina- 
tion of  Matthew  Arnold,  whom  Professor  Sidgwick  in  one 
of  the  most  scathing  essays  of  the  century  denounced  as  a 
trifling  "prophet  of  culture,"  have  not  really  expressed  the 
higher  meaning  of  that  age  —  though  not  the  highest  mean- 
ing of  all  —  better  than  any  official  and  comfortable  com- 
promise ;  whether  the  profounder  significance  of  that  time 
of  doubt  was  not  rather  in  Matthew  Arnold's  brave  disease  : 

And  we  are  here  as  on  a  darkling  plain 

Swept  with  confused  alarms  of  struggle  and  flight. 

Where  ignorant  armies  clash  by  night. 

I  am  confirmed  in  this  view  by  one  of  the  present  editor's 
observations.  I  read  the  stanza  of  In  Memoriam  which 
describes  the  reception  of  the  poet's  dead  friend  into  the 
heavenly  host : 

The  great  Intelligences  fair 

That  range  above  our  mortal  state. 
In  circle  round  the  blessed  gate, 

Received  and  gave  him  welcome  there ;  — 


TENNYSON  221 

and  then  in  the  editor's  note  I  read  the  lines  of  Milton's 
Lycidas  which  Tennyson  imitated : 

There  entertain  him  all  the  Saints  above 
In  solemn  troops,  and  sweet  societies. 
That  sing,  and  singing,  in  their  glory  move. 
And  wipe  the  tears  for  ever  from  his  eyes. 

Why  is  it  that  Tennyson  here  leaves  us  so  cold,  whereas 
at  the  sound  of  Milton's  words  the  heart  still  leaps  as  at 
a  bugle  call  ?  Why  are  these  fair  Intelligences  so  meaning- 
less and  so  frigid?  Is  not  the  cause  just  the  spirit  of 
compromise  between  religion  and  science  that  has  entered 
into  Tennyson's  image,  leaving  it  neither  the  simple  objec- 
tive faith  of  Milton  nor  the  honest  questioning  of  Matthew 
Arnold  ? 

It  may  seem  that  I  have  dwelt  over-much  on  this  weaker 
side  of  an  admired  writer  who  has  so  much  noble  work  to 
his  credit,  but  it  was  these  compromises  that  gave  him  his 
historic  position,  and,  also,  it  is  only  by  bringing  out 
clearly  this  aspect  of  his  work  that  we  are  enabled  to  dis- 
cern the  full  force  of  another  and  contrasted  phase,  which 
was  not  of  the  age  but  was  the  unfettered  voice  of  the  poet 
himself.  As  we  hear  of  the  impression  made  by  the  man 
Tennyson  upon  his  contemporaries,  and  then  consider  the 
sleeker  qualities  of  his  verse,  we  find  it  difficult  to  associate 
the  two  together ;  there  was  no  prettiness  or  convention  in 
his  character,  but  a  certain  elusive  wildness  of  beauty  and 
a  noble,  almost  defiant,  independence.  To  distinguish  be- 
tween the  two  poets  in  the  one  writer  is  the  only  way 
rightly  to  understand  and  wisely  to  enjoy  him.  Now  if 
we  examine  the  spirit  of  compromise,  which  made  the 
official  poet  in  Tennyson,  we  shall  see  that  it  rests  finally 
on  a  denial  of  religious  dualism,  on  a  denial,  that  is,  of  the 


222  MODERN  ESSAYS 

consciousness,  which  no  reasoning  of  philosophy  and  no 
noise  of  the  world  can  ever  quite  obliterate,  of  two  opposite 
principles  within  us,  one  bespeaking  unity  and  peace  and 
infinite  life,  the  other  calling  us  to  endless  change  and 
division  and  discord.  Just  this  cleft  within  our  nature 
the  Victorians  attempted  to  gloss  over.  Because  they 
could  not  discover  the  rational  bond  between  the  world 
of  time  and  evolution  and  the  idea  of  eternity  and  change- 
lessness,  they  would  deny  that  these  two  can  exist  side  by 
side  as  totally  distinct  spheres,  and  by  raising  the  former 
and  lowering  the  latter  would  seek  the  truth  in  some 
middle  ground  of  compromise.  Thus  instead  of  saying, 
as  Michael  Angelo  said,  "Happy  the  soul  where  time  no 
longer  courses,"  they  placed  the  faith  of  religion  in  some 
far-off  event  of  time,  as  if  eternity  were  a  kind  of  enchant- 
ment lent  by  distance. 

Such  was  the  official  message  of  Tennyson.  But  by 
the  side  of  this  there  comes  up  here  and  there  through 
his  works  an  utterly  different  vein  of  mysticism,  which  is 
scarcely  English  and  certainly  not  Victorian.  It  was  a 
sense  of  estrangement  from  time  and  personality  which 
took  possession  of  him  at  intervals  from  youth  to  age. 
In  a  well-known  passage  he  tries  to  analyse  this  state  : 

A  kind  of  waking  trance  I  have  frequently  had,  quite  up  from  boyhood, 
when  I  have  been  all  alone.  This  has  generally  come  upon  me  thro'  re- 
peating my  own  name  two  or  three  times  to  myself  silently,  till  all  at 
once,  as  it  were  out  of  the  intensity  of  the  consciousness  of  individuality, 
the  individuality  itself  seemed  to  dissolve  away  into  boundless  being,  and 
this  not  a  confused  state,  but  the  clearest  of  the  clearest,  the  surest  of  the 
surest,  the  weirdest  of  the  weirdest,  utterly  beyond  words,  where  death 
was  almost  a  laughable  impossibility,  the  loss  of  personality  (if  so  it  were) 
seeming  no  extinction  but  the  only  true  life. 

This  was  not  a  reading  into  youth  of  a  later  knowledge 
gained  from  Oriental  sources.      In  the  notes  to  the  Evers- 


TENNYSON  223 

ley  volumes,  the  editor  gives  an  unpublished  juvenile 
j)oem,  The  Mystic,  in  which  the  same  feeling  is  expressed, 
if  not  so  clearly,  at  least  with  a  self-knowledge  every  way 
remarkable  for  a  boy : 

Ye  could  not  read  the  marvel  in  his  eye. 
The  still  serene  abstraction ;    he  hath  felt 
The  vanities  of  after  and  before. 


He  often  lying  broad  awake,  and  yet 
Remaining  from  the  body,  and  apart 
In  intellect  and  power  and  will,  hath  heard 
Time  flowing  in  the  middle  of  the  night, 
And  all  things  creeping  to  a  day  of  doom. 

The  point  to  note  is  how  Tennyson  in  such  passages  feels 
himself  an  entity  set  apart  from  the  flowing  of  time, 
whereas  in  the  official  compromise  of  In  Memoriam  he  — 
not  only  he,  but  God  Himself  —  is  one  with  the  sum  of 
things  in  their  vague  temporal  progress.  In  that  differ- 
ence, if  rightly  understood,  lies,  I  think,  the  distinction 
between  faith  and  naturalism. 

This  sense  of  himself  as  a  being  set  apart  from  change 
strengthened,  if  anything,  as  he  grew  old.  Its  most  philo- 
sophic expression  is  in  The  Ancient  Sage,  which  was  first 
published  in  1885  and  was  regarded  by  him  as  one  of  his 
best  later  poems  ;  it  is  rebellious  in  Vastness,  lyrical  in 
Break,  Break,  Break,  purely  melodic  in  Far  —  Far  — 
Away,  dramatic  in  Ulysses,  autobiographical  in  The  Gleam. 
Always  it  is  the  man  himself  speaking  his  own  innermost 
religious  experience,  and  no  mere  "minimum  of  faith" 
needed  for  the  preservation  of  society. 

For  the  fullest  and  most  artistic  utterance  of  this  faith 
we  must  go  to  the  Idylls  of  the  King.     I  will  confess  to 


224  MODERN  ESSAYS 

being  no  unreserved  lover  of  that  mangled  epic  as  a  whole ; 
it  seems  to  me  that  in  most  of  its  parts  the  Victorian 
prettiness  is  made  doubly,  and  at  times  offensively,  con- 
spicuous by  the  contrast  between  Tennyson's  lim]jid  sen- 
timentality and  the  sturdier  fibre  of  Malory's  Morte 
Darlhur  from  which  he  drew  his  themes.  But  it  is  true 
that  here  and  there,  in  a  line  or  a  musically  haunting 
passage,  he  has  in  the  Idylls  spoken  from  the  depth  of 
his  heart,  as  he  has  spoken  nowhere  else,  and  that  one  of 
them.  The  Holy  Grail,  has  an  insight  into  things  spiritual 
and  a  precision  it  would  be  hard  to  match  in  any  other 
English  poem.  The  mystic  cup,  which  had  been  brought 
to  England  by  Joseph  of  Arimathea  and  had  vanished 
away  for  the  sinfulness  of  the  people,  was  first  seen  in 
vision  by  a  holy  sister  of  Sir  Percivale,  and  by  her  Galahad 
was  incited  to  go  on  the  sacred  quest.  Meanwhile,  one 
day,  when  the  knights  were  gathered  at  the  Round  Table 
in  the  absence  of  the  King,  Galahad  sits  in  Merlin's  magic 
seat,  which,  as  Tennyson  explains,  is  a  symbol  of  the 
spiritual  imagination,  the  siege  perilous,  wherein  "no  man 
could  sit  but  he  should  lose  himself": 

And  all  at  once,  as  there  we  sat,  we  heard 

A  crackling  and  a  riving  of  the  roofs. 

And  rending,  and  a  blast,  and  overhead 

Thunder,  and  in  the  thunder  was  a  cry. 

And  in  the  blast  there  smote  along  the  hall 

A  beam  of  light  seven  times  more  clear  than  day : 

And  down  the  long  beam  stole  the  Holy  Grail 

All  over  covcr'd  with  a  luminous  cloud. 

And  none  might  see  who  bare  it,  and  it  past. 

But  every  knight  beheld  his  fellow's  face 

As  in  a  glory,  and  all  the  knights  arose. 

And  staring  each  at  other  like  dumb  men 

Stood,  till  I  found  a  voice  and  sware  a  vow. 


TENNYSON  225 

The  vision,  in  other  words,  is  nothing  else  but  a  sudden 
and  bUnding  sense  of  that  duaHsm  of  the  world  and  of 
the  human  soul  beneath  which  the  solid-seeming  earth 
reels  and  dissolves  away,  overwhelming  with  terror  and 
uncomprehended  impulses  all  but  those  purely  spiritual 
to  whom  the  earth  is  already  an  unreal  thing.  Then 
enters  the  King  and  perceives  the  perturbation  among 
his  knights.  It  is  characteristic  of  England  and  of  the 
age,  although  it  has,  too,  its  universal  signijBcance,  that 
Tennyson's  Arthur  should  deplore  the  search  for  the  Grail 
as  a  wild  aberration,  which  is  to  bring  impossible  hopes 
and  desolate  disappointments  to  those  whose  business  was 
to  do  battle  among  very  material  forces.  "Go,"  he 
says  — 

Go,  since  your  vows  are  sacred,  being  made : 
Yet  —  for  ye  know  the  cries  of  all  my  realm 
Pass  thro'  this  hall  —  how  often,  O  my  knights, 
Your  places  being  vacant  at  my  side. 
This  chance  of  noble  deeds  will  come  and  go 
Unchallenged,  while  ye  follow  wandering  fires 
Lost  in  the  quagmire ! 

Only  Sir  Galahad,  in  whom  is  no  taint  of  sin  or  selfishness, 
and  who  was  bold  to  find  himself  by  losing  himself,  had 
beheld  clearly  the  vision  of  the  cup  as  it  smote  across  the 
hall.  I  do  not  know  how  it  may  be  with  others,  but  to 
me  the  answer  of  Galahad  to  the  King  has  a  mystical 
throb  and  exultation  almost  beyond  any  other  words  of 
English : 

But  I,  Sir  Arthur,  saw  the  Holy  Grail, 
I  saw  the  Holy  Grail  and  heard  a  cry  — 
"O  Galahad,"  and  "O  Galahad,  follow  me." 

That  is  the  cry  and  the  voice,  now  poetry  and  philosophy, 
which  Tennyson  had  in  mind  when  he  wrote  of  hearing 


226  MODERN  ESSAYS 

"the  word  that  is  the  symbol  of  myself."  He  who  has 
once  heard  it  and  heard  the  responding  echo  within  his 
own  breast,  can  never  again  close  his  ears  to  its  sound. 
To  Galahad  it  meant  the  vanishing  of  the  world  alto- 
gether, and  there  is  nothing  more  magnificent  in  Tennyson, 
scarcely  in  English  verse,  I  think,  than  Sir  Percivale's 
sight  of  Galahad  fleeing  over  the  bridges  out  into  the  far 
horizon,  and  disappearing  into  the  splendours  of  the  sky, 
while  — 

.  .  .  thrice  above  him  all  the  heavens 
Open'd  and  blazed  with  thunder  such  as  seem'd 
Shoutings  of  all  the  sons  of  God  :   and  first 
At  once  I  saw  him  far  on  the  great  Sea, 
In  silver-shining  armour  starry -clear; 
And  o'er  his  head  the  Holy  Vessel  hung 
Clothed  in  white  samite  or  a  luminous  cloud. 

There,  in  the  inspiration  from  Tennyson's  own  visionary 
faith  and  from  no  secular  compromise,  we  find  the  lift  and 
the  joy  and  the  assurance  that  Milton  knew  and  sang  in 
Lycidas  and  that  was  so  sadly  missed  in  the  "great 
Intelligences  fair"  of  In  Memoriam. 

But  to  Sir  Percivale  himself  the  vision  brought  no  such 
divine  transfiguration.  He  is  the  one  who  sees,  indeed, 
and  understands,  yet  cannot  lose  himself.  Because  the 
Holy  Grail  signifies  a  dualism  which  sets  the  eternal  world 
not  at  the  end  of  the  temporal,  but  utterly  apart  from  it, 
he  who  knows  the  higher  while  lacking  the  courage  to 
renounce  the  lower,  wanders  comfortless  with  neither  the 
ecstatic  joy  of  the  one  nor  the  homely  satisfactions  of  the 
other.  So  the  world  and  all  that  it  contains  turn  into 
dust  at  his  touch,  leaving  him  alone  and  wearying,  in  a 
land  of  sand  and  thorns.  Another,  Sir  Bors,  the  simple, 
trustful  gentleman,  who  goes  out  on  the  word  of  others, 


TENNYSON  227 

following  duty  only  and  trusting  in  the  honour  or  the  act 
as  it  comes  to  him,  sees  in  adversity  the  Holy  Cup  shining 
through  a  rift  in  his  prison,  and  abides  content  that  the 
will  of  God  should  reserve  these  high  things  as  a  reward 
for  whomsoever  it  chooses.  Still  another,  Sir  Gawain, 
finding  the  vision  is  not  for  him,  and  having  turned  his 
eyes  from  the  simple  rule  of  duty,  sinks  into  sensual 
pleasures,  and  declares  his  twelvemonth  and  a  day  a 
merry  jaunt.  Most  fatal  of  all  is  the  experience  of  Laun- 
celot,  he,  the  greatest  of  all,  who  brought  the  sin  into  the 
court,  who  cannot  disentangle  the  warring  impulses  of 
good  and  evil  within  himself.  He,  too,  rides  out  of  Came- 
lot  on  the  Quest,  and  then : 

My  madness  came  upon  me  as  of  old 
And  whipt  me  into  waste  fields  far  away. 

it:  ^!  *  *  *  * 

But  such  a  blast,  my  King,  began  to  blow. 
So  loud  a  blast  along  the  shore  and  sea. 
Ye  could  not  hear  the  waters  for  the  blast, 
Tho'  heapt  in  mounds  and  ridges  all  the  sea 
Drove  like  a  cataract,  and  all  the  sand 
Swept  like  a  river,  and  the  clouded  heavens 
Were  shaken  with  the  motion  and  the  sound. 

This  is  an  application  to  the  smaller  field  of  wind  and 
earth  and  water  of  that  dizzy  tempestuous  motion  which 
in  Tennyson's  earlier  poem  of  Lucretius  surged  through 
the  Epicurean's  atomic  universe.  To  the  eye  of  the 
spirit,  Tennyson  would  seem  to  say,  the  material  world  is 
a  flux  and  endless,  purposeless  mutation  —  leaving  the 
self-possessed  soul  to  its  own  inviolable  peace,  or,  upon 
one  that  perceives  yet  is  still  enmeshed  in  evil  desires, 
thronging  in  visions  and  terrors  of  madness.  One  need 
not  be  a  confessed  mystic  to  feel  the  power  of  these  pas- 


228  MODERN  ESSAYS 

sages,  any  more  than  one  need  be  a  Puritan  (standing, 
that  is,  at  the  opposite  pole  of  religion  from  mystic)  to 
appreciate  Milton.  To  the  genuine  conviction  of  these 
poets  our  human  nature  responds  as  it  can  never  respond 
to  the  insincerity  of  the  world's  "minimum  of  faith." 
With  Tennyson,  unfortunately,  the  task  is  always  to 
separate  the  poet  of  insight  from  the  poet  of  compromise. 


I 


REALISM  AND   REALITY  IN  FICTION  ^ 

BY 

William  Lyon  Phelps 

Discussion  of  literary  theory  is  difficult  because  of  lack  of  definition. 
In  his  paper,  read  before  the  American  Academy,  Professor  Phelps 
brings  out  his  thought'  by  means  of  concrete  illustration.  He  opens 
with  an  anecdote  in  which  the  two  ideas.  Realism  and  Reality,  are 
brought  sharply  into  contrast.  Then  follow  three  paragraphs  of  gen- 
eral discussion  in  which  the  difference  is  fully  explained.  Then  seven 
paragraphs  in  catalogue  form  of  the  predicates  of  Reality.  Each  of 
these  paragraphs  by  illustration,  anecdote,  dialogue,  is  made  very  clear, 
—  so  clear  that  the  author  feels  no  need  for  a  summary  at  the  end. 
And  by  this  omission,  the  reader  is  scarcely  conscious  of  the  catalogue 
nature  of  the  essay  as  a  whole. 

During  those  early  years  of  his  youth  at  Paris,  which 
the  melancholy  but  unrepentant  George  Moore  insists  he 
spent  in  riotous  living,  he  was  on  one  memorable  occasion 
making  a  night  of  it  at  a  ball  in  Montmartre.  In  the 
midst  of  the  revelry  a  grey  giant  came  placidly  striding 
across  the  crowded  room,  looking,  I  suppose,  something 
like  Gulliver  in  Lilliput.  It  was  the  Russian  novelist 
Turgenev.  For  a  moment  the  young  Irishman  forgot 
the  girls,  and  plunged  into  eager  talk  with  the  man  from 
the  North.  Emile  Zola  had  just  astonished  Paris  with 
UAssommoir.  In  response  to  a  leading  question,  Tur- 
genev shook  his  head  gravely  and  said  :   "What  difference 

1  From  "Essays  on  Books,"  by  permission  of  the  author  and  of  The 
Macmillan  Co. 

229 


230  MODERN  ESSAYS 

does  it  make  whether  a  woman  sweats  in  the  middle  of 
her  back  or  under  her  arms?  I  want  to  know  how  she 
thinks,  not  how  she  feels." 

In  this  statement  the  great  master  of  diagnosis  indicated 
the  true  distinction  between  realism  and  reality.  A  work 
of  art  may  be  conscientiously  realistic,  —  few  men  have 
had  a  more  importunate  conscience  than  Zola,  —  and  yet 
be  untrue  to  life,  or,  at  all  events,  untrue  to  life  as  a  whole. 
Realism  may  degenerate  into  emphasis  on  sensational  but 
relatively  unimportant  detail :  reality  deals  with  that 
mystery  of  mysteries,  the  human  heart.  Realism  may 
degenerate  into  a  creed ;  and  a  formal  creed  in  art  is  as 
unsatisfactory  as  a  formal  creed  in  religion,  for  it  is  aiji 
attempt  to  confine  what  by  its  very  nature  is  boundless 
and  infinite  into  a  narrow  and  prescribed  space.  Your 
microscope  may  be  accurate  and  powerful,  but  its  strong 
regard  is  turned  on  only  one  thing  at  a  time ;  and  no  mat- 
ter how  enormously  this  thing  may  be  enlarged,  it  remains 
only  one  thing  out  of  the  infinite  variety  of  God's  universe. 
To  describe  one  part  of  life  by  means  of  a  perfectly  accu- 
rate microscope  is  not  to  describe  life  any  more  than  one 
can  measure  the  Atlantic  Ocean  by  means  of  a  perfectly 
accurate  yardstick.  Zola  was  an  artist  of  extraordinary 
energy,  sincerity,  and  honesty;  but,  after  all,  when  he 
gazed  upon  a  dunghill,  he  saw  and  described  a  dunghill. 
Rostand  looked  steadfastly  at  the  same  object,  and  beheld 
the  vision  of  Chanticler. 

Suppose  some  foreign  champion  of  realism  should  arrive 
in  New  York  at  dusk,  spend  the  whole  night  visiting  the 
various  circles  of  our  metropolitan  hell,  and  depart  for 
Europe  in  the  dawn.  Suppose  that  he  should  make  a 
strictly  accurate  narrative  of  all  that  he  had  seen.  Well 
and  good;    it  would  be  realistic,  it  would  be  true.     But 


REALISM  AND  REALITY  IN  FICTION       231 

suppose  he  should  call  his  narrative  America.     Then  we 
should  assuredly  protest. 

"You  have  not  described  America.  Your  picture  lacks 
the  most  essential  features." 

He  would  reply : 

"But  isn't  what  I  have  said  all  true?  I  defy  you  to 
deny  its  truth.  I  defy  you  to  point  out  errors  or  exaggera- 
tions. Everything  that  I  described  I  saw  with  my  own 
eyes." 

All  this  we  admit,  but  we  refuse  to  accept  it  as  a  picture 
of  America.  Here  is  the  cardinal  error  of  realism.  It 
selects  one  aspect  of  life,  —  usually  a  physical  aspect,  for  it 
is  easy  to  arouse  strained  attention  by  physical  detail,  — 
and  then  insists  that  it  has  made  a  picture  of  life.  The  mod- 
ern Parisian  society  drama,  for  example,  cannot  possibly  be 
a  true  representation  of  French  family  and  social  life.  Life 
is  not  only  better  than  that ;  it  is  surely  less  monotonous, 
more  complex.  You  cannot  play  a  great  symphony  on 
one  instrument,  least  of  all  on  the  triangle.  The  plays  of 
Bernstein,  Bataille,  Hervieu,  Donnay,  Capus,  Guinon,  and 
others,  brilliant  in  technical  execution  as  they  often  are, 
really  follow  a  monotonous  convention  of  theatrical  art 
rather  than  life  itself.  As  an  English  critic  has  said,  "The 
Parisian  dramatists  are  living  in  an  atmosphere  of  half- 
truths  and  shams,  grubbing  in  the  divorce  courts  and  living 
upon  the  maintenance  of  social  intrigue  just  as  comfort- 
ably as  any  bully  upon  the  earnings  of  a  prostitute."  An 
admirable  French  critic,  M.  Henry  Bordeaux,  says  of  his 
contemporary  playwrights,  that  they  have  ceased  to  rep- 
resent men  and  women  as  they  really  are.  This  is  not 
realism,  he  declares  ;  it  is  a  new  style  of  false  romanticism, 
where  men  and  women  are  represented  as  though  they  pos- 
sessed no  moral  sense  —  a  romanticism  sensual,  worldly, 


232  MODERN  ESSAYS 

and  savage.     Life  is  pictured  as  though  there  were  no 
such  things  as  daily  tasks  and  daily  duties. 

Shakespeare  was  an  incorrigible  romantic ;  yet  there  is 
more  reality  in  his  compositions  than  in  all  the  realism  of 
his  great  contemporary,  Ben  Jonson.  Confidently  and 
defiantly,  Jonson  set  forth  his  play  Every  Man  in  His 
Humour  as  a  model  of  what  other  plays  should  be ;  for, 
said  he,  it  contains  deeds  and  language  such  as  men  do  use. 
So  it  does :  but  it  falls  far  short  of  the  reality  reached  by 
Shakespeare  in  that  impossible  tissue  of  absurd  events 
which  he  carelessly  called  As  You  Like  It.  In  his 
erudite  and  praiseworthy  attempt  to  bring  back  the  days 
of  ancient  Rome  on  the  Elizabethan  stage  Jonson  achieved 
a  resurrection  of  the  dead :  Shakespeare,  unembarrassed 
by  learning  and  unhampered  by  a  creed,  achieved  a  resur- 
rection of  the  living.  Catiline  and  Sejanus  talk  like  an 
old  text;  Brutus  and  Cassius  talk  like  living  men.  For 
the  letter  killeth,  but  the  spirit  giveth  life. 

The  form,  the  style,  the  setting,  and  the  scenery  of  a 
work  of  art  may  determine  w^hether  it  belongs  to  realism 
or  romanticism ;  for  realism  and  romanticism  are  affairs 
of  time  and  space.  Reality,  however,  by  its  very  essence, 
is  spiritual,  and  may  be  accompanied  by  a  background 
that  is  contemporary,  ancient,  or  purely  mythical.  An 
opera  of  the  Italian  school,  where,  after  a  tragic  scene, 
the  tenor  and  soprano  hold  hands,  trip  together  to  the 
footlights,  and  produce  fluent  roulades,  may  be  set  in  a 
drawing-room,  with  contemporary,  realistic  furniture. 
Compare  La  Traviata  with  the  first  act  of  Die  Walkure, 
and  see  the  difference  between  realism  and  reality. 
In  the  wildly  romantic  and  mythical  setting,  the  passion 
of  love  is  intensely  real;  and  as  the  storm  ceases,  the 
portal  swings  open,  and  the  soft  air  of  the  moonUt  spring 


REALISM  AND  REALITY  IN  FICTION       233 

night  enters  the  room,  the  eternal  reality  of  love  makes 
its  eternal  appeal  in  a  scene  of  almost  intolerable  beauty. 
Even  so  carefullj'^  realistic  an  opera  as  Louise  does  not 
seem  for  the  moment  any  more  real  than  these  lovers  in 
the  spring  moonlight,  deep  in  the  heart  of  the  whispering 
forest. 

A  fixed  creed,  whether  it  be  a  creed  of  optimism,  pes- 
simism, realism,  or  romanticism,  is  a  positive  nuisance  to 
an  artist.  Joseph  Conrad,  all  of  whose  novels  have  the 
unmistakable  air  of  reality,  declares  tliat  the  novelist 
should  have  no  programme  of  any  kind  and  no  set  rules. 
In  a  memorable  phrase  he  cries,  "Liberty  of  the  imagina- 
tion should  be  the  most  precious  possession  of  a  novelist." 
Optimism  may  be  an  insult  to  the  sufferings  of  humanity, 
but,  says  Mr.  Conrad,  pessimism  is  intellectual  arrogance. 
He  will  have  it  that  while  the  ultimate  meaning  of  life  — 
if  there  be  one  —  is  hidden  from  us,  at  all  events  this  is  a 
spectacular  universe ;  and  a  man  who  has  doubled  the 
Horn  and  sailed  through  a  typhoon  on  what  was  uninten- 
tionally a  submarine  vessel  may  be  pardoned  for  insisting 
on  this  point  of  view.  It  is  indeed  a  spectacular  universe, 
which  has  resisted  all  the  attempts  of  realistic  novelists  to 
make  it  dull.  However  sad  or  gay  life  may  be,  it  affords 
an  interesting  spectacle.  Perhaps  this  is  one  reason  why 
all  works  of  art  that  possess  reality  never  fail  to  draw  and 
hold  attention. 

Every  critic  ought  to  have  a  hospitable  mind.  His  atti- 
tude toward  art  in  general  should  be  like  that  of  an  old- 
fashioned  host  at  the  door  of  a  country  inn,  ready  to  wel- 
come all  guests  except  criminals.  It  is  impossible  to  judge 
with  any  fairness  a  new  poem,  a  new  opera,  a  new  picture, 
a  new  novel,  if  the  critic  have  preconceived  opinions  as  to 
what  poetry,  music,  painting,  and  fiction  should  be.     We 


234  MODERN  ESSAYS 

are  all  such  creatures  of  convention  that  the  first  impres- 
sion made  by  reality  in  any  form  of  art  is  sometimes  a 
distinct  shock,  and  we  close  the  windows  of  our  intelligence 
and  draw  the  blinds  that  the  fresh  air  and  the  new  light 
may  not  enter  in.  Just  as  no  form  of  art  is  so  strange  as 
life,  so  it  may  be  the  strangeness  of  reality  in  books,  in 
pictures,  and  in  music  that  makes  our  attitude  one  of 
resistance  rather  than  of  welcome. 

Shortly  after  the  appearance  of  Wordsworth's  Resolu- 
tion and  Independence, 

"There  was  a  roaring  in  the  wind  all  night. 
The  rain  came  heavily  and  fell  in  floods," 

some  one  read  aloud  the  poem  to  an  intelligent  woman. 
She  burst  into  tears,  but,  recovering  herself,  said  shame- 
facedly, "After  all,  it  isn't  poetry."  When  Pushkin, 
striking  off  the  shackles  of  eighteenth-century  conven- 
tions, published  his  first  work,  a  Russian  critic  exclaimed, 
"For  God's  sake  don't  call  this  thing  a  poem!"  These 
two  poems  seemed  strange  because  they  were  so  natural,  so 
real,  so  true,  just  as  a  sincere  person  who  speaks  his  mind 
in  social  intercourse  is  regarded  as  an  eccentric.  We 
follow  conventions  and  not  life.  In  operas  the  lover 
must  be  a  tenor,  as  though  the  love  of  a  man  for  a  woman 
were  something  soft,  something  delicate,  something  emas- 
culate, instead  of  being  what  it  really  is,  the  very  essence 
of  masculine  virility.  I  suppose  that  on  the  operatic  stage 
a  lover  with  a  bass  voice  would  shock  a  good  many  people 
in  the  auditorium,  but  I  should  like  to  see  the  experiment 
tried.  In  Haydn's  Creation,  our  first  parents  sing  a  bass 
and  soprano  duet  very  sweetly.  But  Verdi  gave  that 
seasoned  old  soldier  Otello  a  tenor  role,  and  even  the  fear- 
less Wagner  made  his  leading  lovers  all  sing  tenor  except 


REALISM  AND  REALITY  IN  FICTION       235 

the  Flying  Dutchman,  who  can  hardly  be  called  human. 
In  society  dramas  we  have  become  so  accustomed  to  con- 
ventional inflections,  conventional  gestures,  conventional 
grimaces,  that  when  an  actor  speaks  and  behaves  exactly 
as  he  would  were  the  situation  real,  instead  of  assumed, 
the  effect  is  startling.  Virgin  snow  often  looks  blue,  but 
it  took  courage  to  paint  it  blue,  because  people  judge  not 
by  eyesight,  but  by  convention,  and  snow  conventionally 
is  assuredly  white.  In  reading  works  of  fiction  we  have 
become  so  accustomed  to  conventions  that  we  hardly 
notice  how  often  they  contradict  reality.  In  many  novels  I 
have  read  I  have  been  introduced  to  respectable  women  with 
scarlet  lips,  whereas  in  life  I  never  saw  a  really  good  woman 
with  such  labial  curiosities.  Conversations  are  conven- 
tionally unnatural.  A  trivial  illustration  will  suffice. 
Some  one  in  a  group  makes  an  attractive  proposition. 
"Agreed!"  cried  they  all.  Did  you  ever  hear  any  one 
say  "Agreed".'^ 

I  suppose  that  all  novels,  no  matter  how  ostensibly 
objective,  must  really  be  subjective.  Out  of  the  abun- 
dance of  the  heart  the  mouth  speaketh.  Every  artist  feels 
the  imperative  need  of  self-expression.  Milton  used  to 
sit  in  his  arm-chair,  waiting  impatiently  for  his  amanuen- 
sis, and  cry,  "I  want  to  be  milked."  Even  so  dignified, 
so  reticent,  and  so  sober-minded  a  novelist  as  Joseph 
Conrad  says,  "The  novelist  does  not  describe  the  world: 
he  simply  describes  his  own  world."  Sidney's  advice, 
"Look  in  thy  heart,  and  write,"  is  as  applicable  to  the 
realistic  novelist  as  it  is  to  the  lyric  poet.  We  know  now 
that  the  greatest  novelist  of  our  time,  Tolstoi,  wrote  his 
autobiography  in  every  one  of  his  so-called  works  of  fiction. 
The  astonishing  air  of  reality  that  they  possess  is  owing 
largely  to  the  fact  not  merely  that  they  are  true  to  life, 


236  MODERN  ESSAYS 

but  that  they  are  the  living  truth.  When  an  artist  suc- 
ceeds in  getting  the  secrets  of  his  inmost  heart  on  the 
printed  page,  the  book  hves.  Tliis  accounts  for  the  ex- 
traordinary power  of  Dostoevski,  who  simply  turned  him- 
self inside  out  every  time  he  wrote  a  novel. 

The  only  reality  that  we  can  consistently  demand  of  a 
novel  is  that  its  characters  and  scenes  shall  make  a  per- 
manent impression  on  our  imagination.  The  object  of  all 
forms  of  art  is  to  produce  an  illusion,  and  the  illusion  can- 
not be  successful  with  experienced  readers  unless  it  have 
the  air  of  realit3^  The  longer  we  live,  the  more  diflScult 
it  is  to  deceive  us :  we  smile  at  the  scenes  that  used  to 
draw  our  tears,  we  are  left  cold  by  the  declamation  that 
we  once  thought  was  passion,  and  we  have  supped  so  full 
with  horrors  that  we  are  not  easily  frightened.  We  are 
simply  bored  as  we  see  the  novelist  get  out  his  little  bag 
of  tricks.  But  we  never  weary  of  the  great  figures  in 
Fielding,  in  Jane  Austen,  in  Dickens,  in  Thackeray,  in 
Balzac,  in  Turgenev,  for  they  have  become  an  actual 
part  of  our  mental  life.  And  it  is  interesting  to  remem- 
ber that  while  the  ingenious  situations  and  boisterous 
swashbucklers  of  most  romances  fade  like  the  flowers 
of  the  field.  Cooper  and  Dumas  are  read  by  genera- 
tion after  generation.  Their  heroes  cannot  die,  because 
they  have  what  Mrs.  Browning  called  the  "principle  of 
life." 

The  truly  great  novelist  is  not  only  in  harmony  with 
life;  his  characters  seem  to  move  with  the  stars  in  their 
courses.  "To  be,"  said  the  philosopher  Lotze,  "is  to  be 
in  relations."  The  moment  a  work  of  art  ceases  to  be  in 
relation  with  life,  it  ceases  to  be.  All  the  great  novelists 
are  what  I  like  to  call  sidereal  novelists.  They  belong  to 
the  earth,  like  the  procession  of  the  seasons ;    they  are 


REALISM  AND  REALITY  EST  FICTION       237 

universal,  like  the  stars.  A  commonplace  producer  of 
novels  for  the  market  describes  a  group  of  people  that 
remains  nothing  but  a  group  of  people ;  they  interest  us 
perhaps  momentarily,  like  an  item  in  a  newspaper;  but 
they  do  not  interest  us  deeply,  any  more  than  we  are 
really  interested  at  this  moment  in  what  Brown  and  Jones 
are  doing  in  Rochester  or  Louisville.  They  may  be  in- 
teresting to  their  author,  for  children  are  always  interest- 
ing to  their  parents ;  but  to  the  ordinary  reader  they  be- 
gin and  end  their  fictional  life  as  an  isolated  group.  On 
the  contrary,  when  we  read  a  story  like  The  Return  of 
the  Native,  the  book  seems  as  inevitable  as  the  approach 
of  winter,  as  the  setting  of  the  sun.  All  its  characters 
seem  to  share  in  the  diurnal  revolution  of  the  earth,  to 
have  a  fixed  place  in  the  order  of  the  universe.  We  are 
considering  only  the  fortunes  of  a  little  group  of  people 
living  in  a  little  corner  of  England,  but  they  seem  to  be 
in  intimate  and  necessary  relation  with  the  movement  of 
the  forces  of  the  universe. 

The  recent  revival  of  the  historical  romance,  which  shot 
up  in  the  nineties,  flourished  mightily  at  the  end  of  the 
century,  and  has  already  faded,  was  a  protest  not  against 
reality,  but  against  realism.  Realism  in  the  eighties  had 
become  a  doctrine,  and  we  know  how  its  fetters  cramped 
Stevenson.  He  joyously  and  resolutely  burst  them,  and 
gave  us  romance  after  romance,  all  of  which  except  the 
Black  Arrow  showed  a  reality  superior  to  realism.  The 
year  of  his  death,  1894,  ushered  in  the  romantic  revival. 
Romanticism  suddenly  became  a  fashion  that  forced  many 
new  writers  and  some  experts  to  mould  their  work  in  its 
form.  A  few  specific  illustrations  must  be  given  to  prove 
this  statement.  Mr.  Stanley  Weyman  really  wanted  to 
write  a  realistic  novel,  and  actually  wrote  one,  but  the 


238  MODERN  ESSAYS 

public  would  none  of  it :  he  therefore  fed  the  mob  with 
The  House  of  the  Wolf,  with  A  Gentleman  from  France, 
with  Under  the  Red  Robe.  Enormously  successful 
were  these  stirring  tales.  The  air  became  full  of  ob- 
solete oaths  and  the  clash  of  steel  —  "God's  bodikins ! 
man,  I  will  spit  you  like  a  lark!"  To  use  a  scholar's 
phrase,  we  began  to  revel  in  the  glamour  of  a  bogus  antiq- 
uity. For  want  of  a  better  term,  I  call  all  these  romances 
the  "Gramercy"  books.  Mr.  Winston  Churchill,  now  a 
popular  discij)le  of  the  novel  of  manners,  gained  his 
reputation  by  Richard  Carvel  with  a  picture  of  a  duel 
facing  the  title-page.  Perhaps  the  extent  of  the  romantic 
craze  is  shown  most  clearly  in  the  success  attained  by  the 
thoroughly  sophisticated  Anthony  Hope  with  The  Pris- 
oner of  Zenda,  by  the  author  of  Peter  Sterling  with 
Janice  Meredith,  and  most  of  all  by  the  strange  Ad- 
ventures of  Captain  Horn,  a  bloody  story  of  buried  treas- 
ure, actually  written  by  our  beloved  humorist,  Frank 
Stockton.  Mr.  Stockton  had  the  temperament  most  fatal 
to  romance,  the  bright  gift  of  humorous  burlesque ;  the 
real  Frank  Stockton  is  seen  in  that  original  and  joyful 
work.  The  Casting  Away  of  Mrs.  Leeks  and  Mrs.  Ale- 
shine.  Yet  the  fact  that  he  felt  the  necessity  of  writing 
Captain  Horn,  is  good  evidence  of  the  tide.  This 
romantic  wave  engulfed  Europe  as  well  as  America,  but 
so  far  as  I  can  discover,  the  only  work  after  the  death  of 
Stevenson  that  seems  destined  to  remain,  appeared  in  the 
epical  historical  romances  of  the  Pole  Sienkiewicz.  Hun- 
dreds of  the  romances  that  the  world  was  eagerly  reading 
in  1900  are  now  forgotten  like  last  year's  almanac ;  but 
they  served  a  good  purpose  apart  from  temporary  amuse- 
ment to  invalids,  overtired  business  men,  and  the  young. 
There  was  the  sound  of  a  mighty  wind,  and  the  close 


REALISM  AND  REALITY  IN  FICTION       239 

chambers  of  modern  realism  were  cleansed  by  the  fresh 
air. 

A  new  kind  of  realism,  more  closely  related  to  reality, 
has  taken  the  place  of  the  receding  romance.  We  now 
behold  the  "life"  novel,  the  success  of  which  is  a  curious 
demonstration  of  the  falseness  of  recent  prophets.  We 
were  told  a  short  time  ago  that  the  long  novel  was  extinct. 
The  three-volume  novel  seemed  very  dead  indeed,  and  the 
fickle  public  would  read  nothing  but  a  short  novel,  and 
would  not  read  that  unless  some  one  was  swindled,  se- 
duced, or  stabbed  on  the  first  page.  Then  suddenly 
appeared  Joseph  Vance,  which  its  author  called  an  ill- 
written  autobiography,  and  it  contained  280,000  words. 
It  was  devoured  by  a  vast  army  of  readers,  who  clamoured 
for  more.  Mr.  Arnold  Bennett,  who  had  made  a  number 
of  short  flights  without  attracting  much  attention,  pro- 
duced The  Old  Wives'  Tale,  giving  the  complete  life- 
history  of  two  sisters.  Emboldened  by  the  great  and 
well-deserved  success  of  this  history,  he  launched  a  trilogy, 
of  which  two  huge  sections  are  already  in  the  hands  of  a 
wide  public.  No  details  are  omitted  in  these  vast  struc- 
tures ;  even  a  cold  in  the  head  is  elaborately  described. 
But  thousands  and  thousands  of  people  seem  to  have  the 
time  and  the  patience  to  read  these  volumes.  Why.? 
Because  the  story  is  in  intimate  relation  with  life.  A 
gifted  Frenchman  appears  on  the  scene  with  a  novel  in 
ten  volumes,  Jean  Christophe,  dealing  with  the  life 
of  this  hero  from  the  cradle  to  the  grave.  This  is  being 
translated  into  all  the  languages  of  Europe,  so  intense  is 
the  curiosity  of  the  world  regarding  a  particular  book  of 
life.  Some  may  ask.  Why  should  the  world  be  burdened 
with  this  enormous  mass  of  trivial  detail  in  rather  unevent- 
ful lives  ?     The  answer  may  be  found  in  Era  Lippo  Lippi's 


240  MODERN  ESSAYS 

sj)irited  defence  of  his  art,  which  differed  from  the  art  of 
Fra  AngeHco  in  sticking  close  to  reaUty : 

"For,  don't  you  mark  ?  we're  made  so  that  we  love 
First  when  we  see  them  painted,  things  we  have  passed 
Perhaps  a  hundred  times  nor  cared  to  see." 

I  find  in  the  contemporary  "Ufe"  novel  a  sincere, 
dignified,  and  successful  effort  to  substitute  reality  for 
the  former  rather  narrow  realism  ;  for  it  is  an  attempt  to 
represent  life  as  a  whole. 


TEACHING  ENGLISH! 

BY 

Henry  Seidel  Canby 

To  arouse  the  interest  of  the  ordinary  reader  in  what  is  after  all  a 
technical  problem,  Professor  Canby  begins  his  essay  with  a  careful 
statement  of  the  difficulty.  He  then  propounds  his  solution,  that  the 
aim  of  the  teacher  of  English  literature  should  be  to  teach  the  pupils  to 
read  literature.  As  this  is  the  main  position,  he  explains  and  illustrates 
it  through  the  body  of  the  essay.  This  is  followed  by  a  brief  catalogue  of 
the  four  possible  types  of  teachers,  each  in  its  own  paragraph.  The  essay, 
then,  returns  to  emphasize  the  main  thought  in  the  paragraph,  "I  have 
already  answered  the  question  according  to  my  own  beliefs."  Try 
the  effect  of  omitting  the  catalogue  altogether,  of  omitting  the  paragraphs 
beginning  " Thus  the  effects  of  English  teaching  are  sometimes  hidden" 
to  the  paragraph  beginning  "What  is  teaching  literature?"  The 
continuity  of  the  thought  remains  unbroken.  Exactly  what  is  gained 
by  the  insertion  of  those  intervening  paragraphs  ? 

The  so-called  new  professions  have  been  given  abundant 
space  of  late  in  the  Sunday  newspaper ;  but  among  them 
I  do  not  find  numbered  the  teaching  of  English.  Never- 
theless, with  such  exceptions  as  advertising,  social  service, 
and  efiiciency-engineering,  it  is  one  of  the  newest  as  well 
as  one  of  the  largest.  I  do  not  mean  the  teaching  of 
English  writing.  Directly  or  indirectly  that  has  been 
taught  since  the  heavenly  grace  instructed  Csedmon  in  liis 

1  From  The  Yale  Reviciv  for  October,  1914,  by   permission   of   the 
author  and  of  the  editor  of  The  Yale  Review. 
E  241 


242  MODERN  ESSAYS 

stable.  I  mean  English  literature,  which  has  been  made  a 
subject  of  formal  instruction  in  our  schools  and  colleges 
only  since  the  mid-nineteenth  century.  Yet  already  the 
colleges  complain  that  the  popularity  of  this  comparatively 
recent  addition  to  the  curriculum  is  so  great  that  harder, 
colder,  more  disciplinary  subjects  are  pushed  to  the  wall 
(and  this  in  practical  America  !) ;  and  in  the  schools  only 
the  so-called  vocational  courses  are  as  much  talked  about 
and  argued  over  by  the  educational  powers.  An  army  of 
men  and  women  are  teaching  or  trying  to  teach  us  English 
—  which  includes  American  —  literature. 

The  results  of  this  new  profession  —  as  even  those  who 
earn  their  bread  thereby  are  willing  to  confess  —  are  some- 
times humorous.  The  comicality  of  scholarship  —  as 
when  the  sweaty  hack  work  of  some  hanger-on  of  the  great 
Elizabethans  is  subjected  to  elaborate  study  and  published 
in  two  volumes  —  belongs  rather  to  the  satire  of  research 
than  to  teaching.  But  there  are  many  ludicrous  sequels 
to  the  compulsory  study  of  literature.  Poor  Hawthorne, 
shyest  and  rarest  of  spirit  among  our  men  of  letters,  be- 
comes a  text-book  for  the  million.  Dick  Steele,  who 
dashed  off  his  cheerful  trifles  between  sprees,  is  raised  to 
a  dreary  immortality  of  comparison  with  the  style  and 
humor  of  Addison ;  their  reputations  —  like  a  new  torture 
in  the  Inferno  —  seesawing  with  the  changing  opinions 
of  critics  who  edit  "The  Spectator"  for  the  schools.  And 
Shakespeare,  who  shares  the  weaknesses  of  all  mortal 
workmen,  is  made  a  literary  god  (since  this  new  profession 
must  have  its  divinity),  before  whom  all  tastes  bow  down. 
Then  in  our  classes  we  proceed  to  paraphrase,  to  annotate, 
to  question,  and  cross-question  the  books  these  great  men 
have  left  behind  them,  until  their  tortured  spirits  must 
envy  the  current  unpopularity  of  Latin  and  Greek.     As 


TEACHING  ENGLISH  243 

one  of  my  undergraduates  wrote  at  the  end  of  an  ex- 
amination : 

Shakespeare,  this  prosy  paper  makes  me  blush. 
Your  finest  fancies  we  have  turned  to  —  mush  ! 

Nevertheless,  it  is  the  dillettante,  the  connoisseur,  and 
the  aesthete  who  sneer  at  the  results  of  teaching  English. 
The  practical  man  will  not  usually  be  scornful,  even  when 
he  is  unsympathetic  ;  and  the  wise  many,  who  know  that 
power  over  good  books  is  better  than  a  legacy,  are  too 
thankful  for  benefits  received  to  judge  a  profession  by  its 
failures.  In  truth,  the  finer  minds,  the  richer  lives  which 
must  be  made  possible  if  our  democracy  is  not  to  become 
a  welter  of  vulgar  commercialism,  are  best  composted  by 
literature.  And  therefore  the  teacher  of  English,  provided 
he  can  really  teach,  has  a  just  claim  upon  the  attention 
of  every  American  parent.  But  what  is  teaching  litera- 
ture ? 

There  is  a  function  borrowed  from  Germany  for  our 
graduate  schools,  in  which  a  group  of  professors  have  at 
their  mercy  for  an  hour  of  oral  examination  a  much-to-be- 
pitied  candidate  for  the  degree  of  doctor  of  philosophy. 
They  may  ask  him  any  question  in  their  field  which  ap- 
pears on  previous  reflection  to  be  sufficiently  difficult ; 
and  as  the  more  one  knows  the  more  difficulty  a  given  sub- 
ject presents,  and  they  are  specialists,  the  ordeal  is  infernal. 
If  I  were  brought  before  a  like  tribunal,  composed  of 
parents  of  our  undergraduates,  and  asked  to  justify  this 
new  profession,  I  should  probably  begin  by  asserting  that 
the  purpose  of  teaching  English  is  to  give  light  for  the  mind 
and  solace  for  the  heart. 

The  function  of  the  teacher  of  English  as  a  shedder  of 
light  is  perhaps  more  familiar  to  himself  than  to  the  world ; 


J44  MODERN  ESSAYS 


Ji    ii>>t 


?iire<ilT  evi>ts.  and  has  even  been  forced  upon  him. 
The  teac-ho"  of  pure  science  utterly  repudiates  the  notion 
^  •  "  '  ^  is  to  shed  h^ht  upon  the  meaning  of  life.  His 
_  „. -aS  is  to  teach  the  observed  processes  of  nature,  and 
he  is  too  busy  exploding  old  theories  of  ho"w  she  works, 
and  creating  new  ones,  to  concern  himself  with  the  spiritual 
welfare  of  this  generation.  Perhaps  it  is  just  as  well. 
As  for  the  philosophers,  in  spite  of  the  efforts  of  William 
James,  they  have  not  yet  consented  to  elucidate  their 
subjects  for  the  benefit  of  the  democracy ;  —  with  this 
result,  that  the  average  undergraduate  learns  the  little 
r  "■-"..-. p}iy  that  is  taught  him,  in  his  class  in  English 

re.     Indeed,  as  if  by  a  conspiracy  in  a  practical 

world  anxious  to  save  time  for  the  study  of  facts,  not  only 
the  attributes  of  culture,  but  even  ethics,  morality,  and 
the  implications  of  science  are  left  to  the  English  depart- 
ment. 

The  burden  is  heavy.  The  temptation  to  throw  it  off,  or 
to  mate  use  of  the  opportunity  for  a  course  in  things-in- 
general  and  an  easy  reputation,  is  great.  And  yet  all  the 
world  of  thought  does  form  a  part  of  a  course  in  English, 
for  all  that  has  matured  in  human  experience  finds  its  way 
into  literature.  And  since  good  books  are  the  emanations 
of  radiant  minds,  the  teacher  of  English  must  in  the  long 
run  teach  light. 

But  even  if  Hterature  did  not  mean  light  for  the  mind,  it 
would  still  be  worth  while  to  try  to  teach  it,  if  only  to  pre- 
pare that  solace  for  the  weary  soul  in  reading  which  the 
most  active  must  some  day  crave.  The  undergraduate 
puts  on  a  solemn  face  when  told  that  he  may  need  the 
stimulus  of  books  as  an  incentive  to  life,  or  the  relaxation 
of  books  as  a  rehef  from  it :  but  he  remains  inwardly  un- 
impressed.    And  yet  one  does  not  have  to  be  a  philosopher 


TEACHING  ENGLISH  245 

to  know  that  in  this  age  of  hurry  and  strain  and  sudden 
depressions,  the  power  to  fall  back  on  other  minds  and 
other  times  is  above  price.  Therefore  we  teach  literature 
in  the  hope  that  to  the  poets  and  the  essayists,  the  play- 
wrights and  the  novelists,  men  may  be  helped  to  bring 
slack  or  weary  minds  for  cure. 

All  essays  upon  literature  discourse  upon  the  light  and 
sweetness  which  flow  from  it.  But  this  is  not  an  essay 
upon  literature ;  and  that  is  why  I  have  dismissed  these 
hoped-for  results  so  summarily,  although  profoundly 
believing  that  they  are  the  ultimate  purpose,  indeed  the 
raison  d'etre  of  teaching  English.  My  business  is  rather 
with  the  immediate  aim  of  these  English  courses  to  which 
you  are  sending  your  sons  and  daughters  by  the  tens  of 
thousands.  I  wish  to  discuss  frankly,  not  so  much  the 
why,  as  the  how,  of  teaching  English.  Fine  words  cannot 
accomplish  it.  When  I  first  began  to  teach,  I  met  my 
Freshman  classes  with  rich  and  glowing  words,  —  which  I 
have  repeated  with  more  sobriety  in  the  preceding  para- 
graphs. Literature,  I  said,  is  the  criticism  of  life ;  it  is  the 
spur  of  the  noble  mind,  and  the  comfort  of  the  depressed. 
My  ardent  descrii^tions  fell  flat.  They  were  too  true; 
the  Freshmen  had  heard  them  before.  Now  I  begin 
bluntly  with  the  assertion  that  the  average  young  Ameri- 
can does  not  know  how  to  read ;  and  proceed  to  prove  it. 
To  read  out  the  meaning  of  a  book ;  to  interpret  literature 
as  it  in  turn  interprets  life,  —  whatever  may  be  our  ulti- 
mate purpose,  that  I  take  to  be  the  most  immediate  aim 
of  teaching  English. 

I  do  not  intend  to  slight  the  knowledge  to  be  gained. 
Facts  are  well  worth  picking  up  on  the  way,  but  unless 
they  are  used  they  remain  just  facts  —  and  usually  for- 
gotten ones.     Where  are  your  college  note-books,  crammed 


246  MODERN  ESSAYS 

with  the  facts  of  English  lectures  ?  How  much  does  the 
graduate  remember  of  dates  of  editions,  of  "tendencies," 
and  "sources"?  What  can  he  say  (as  the  examination 
paper  has  it)  of  Vaughan,  of  Cynewulf,  of  the  Gothic 
novel,  and  Pantisocracy  ?  Something,  somewhere,  I 
hope,  for  if  the  onward  sweep  of  English  literature  is  not 
familiar  to  him,  if  the  great  writers  have  no  local  habitation 
and  a  name,  and  Milton  must  be  read  in  terms  of  twentieth- 
century  England,  and  Poe  as  if  he  wrote  for  a  Sunday 
newspaper  syndicate,  his  English  courses  were  dismally 
unsuccessful.  And  yet  to  have  heard  of  Beowulf  and  Tess 
of  the  D'Urbervilles  and  Fair  Rosamond,  is  not  to  know 
English  literature. 

The  undergraduate  (and  his  parent)  must  be  able  to 
read  literature  in  order  to  know  it,  and  to  read  he  must 
have  the  power  of  interpretation.  It  is  easy  to  read  the 
story  in  the  Sunday  supplement,  where  thoughts  of  one 
syllable  are  clothed  in  obvious  symbols  supposed  to  repre- 
sent life.  It  is  harder  to  read  contemporary  writing  that 
contains  real  thought  and  real  observation,  for  the  mind 
and  the  imagination  have  to  be  stretched  a  little  to  take 
in  the  text.  It  is  still  more  difficult  to  enjoy  with  due  com- 
prehension the  vast  treasure  of  our  inherited  literature, 
which  must  always  outweigh  in  value  our  current  gains. 
There  the  boy  you  send  us  to  teach  will  be  perplexed  by 
the  peculiarities  of  language,  set  astray  by  his  lack  of  back- 
ground, and  confused  by  the  operations  of  a  time-spirit 
radically  different  from  his  own.  A  few  trivialities  of 
diction  or  reference  may  hide  from  him  the  life  which  some 
great  genius  has  kept  burning  in  the  printed  page.  And 
even  if  the  unfamiliar  and  the  unexplained  do  not  dis- 
courage him,  even  if  he  reads  Shakespeare,  or  Milton,  or 
Gray  with  his  ardor  unchilled,  nevertheless,  if  he  does  not 


TEACHING  ENGLISH  247 

interpret,  he  gets  but  half.  Here  is  the  chief  need  for 
teaching  EngHsh. 

Hotspur,  for  example,  in  the  first  part  of  Shakespeare's 
"Henry  IV,"  bursts  into  enthusiastic  speech  : 

By  heaven,  methinks  it  were  an  easy  leap. 

To  pluck  bright  honor  from  the  pale-faced  moon. 

Or  dive  into  the  bottom  of  the  deep. 

Where  fathom  line  could  never  touch  the  ground. 

And  pluck  up  drowned  honor  by  the  locks. 

Can  the  Freshman  read  it  ?  Not  unless  he  knows  what 
"honor"  meant  for  Hotspur  and  for  Shakespeare.  Not 
unless  he  comprehends  the  ardent  exuberance  of  the 
Renaissance  that  inspires  the  extravagance  of  the  verse. 
Or  Milton's  famous  portrait  of  Satan  : 

Darkened  so,  yet  shone 
Above  them  all  the  Archangel :  but  his  face 
Deep  scars  of  thunder  had  intrenched,  and  care 
Sat  on  his  faded  cheek,  but  under  brows 
Of  dauntless  courage,  and  considerate  pride 
Waiting  revenge. 

Do  you  see  him  ?  Not  unless,  like  Milton,  you  remember 
Jove  and  his  lightnings,  not  unless  the  austere  imagery  of 
the  Old  Testament  is  present  in  your  imagination,  not 
unless  "considerate"  means  more  to  you  than  an  accent 
in  the  verse.  In  truth,  the  undergraduate  cannot  read 
Stevenson's  "Markheim,"  Tennyson's  "Lotos-Eaters," 
Kipling's  "Recessional,"  or  an  essay  by  Emerson  —  to 
gather  scattered  instances  —  without  background,  without 
an  interpretative  insight,  and  without  an  exact  understand- 
ing of  the  thought  behind  the  words.  Without  them,  he 
must  be  content,  at  best,  with  a  fifty-per-cent  efficiency  of 
comprehension.  And  fifty  per  cent  is  below  the  margin  of 
enjoyment,  and  below  the  point  where  real  profit  begins. 


248  MODERN  ESSAYS 

Tint  even  fifty  per  cent  is  a  higher  figure  than  some 
undergraduates  attain  at  the  beginning  of  their  college 
careers.  Old  Justice  Shallow,  for  instance,  pompous, 
boastful,  tedious,  Justice  Shallow  with  his  ridiculous  at- 
tempts to  prove  himself  as  wicked  as  Falstaff,  and  his 
empty  sententiousness  is  certainly  as  well-defined  a  comic 
character  as  Shakespeare  presents,  and  yet  it  is  astonishing 
how  much  of  him  is  missed  by  the  reader  who  cannot  yet 
interpret. 

"Justice  Shallow,"  writes  a  Freshman,  "seems  to  be  a 
jolly  old  man  who  loves  company,  and  who  would  do 
anything  to  please  his  guests."  "Justice  Shallow,"  says 
another,  "was  an  easy-going  man;  that  is,  he  did  not 
allow  things  to  worry  him.  At  times  he  was  very 
mean."  "Justice  Shallow,"  a  third  proposes,  "is  kind- 
hearted.  ...  He  means  well,  but  things  do  not  come 
out  as  he  had  planned  them." 

Shallow  jolly!  Shallow  kind-hearted!  Perhaps  occa- 
sionally, —  for  the  benefit  of  gentlemen  from  the  court. 
But  to  describe  him  thus  is  as  if  one  should  define  an  ele- 
phant as  an  animal  with  four  legs  and  a  fondness  for  hay. 
They  missed  the  flavor  of  Shallow,  these  boys,  not  because 
it  was  elusive,  but  because  they  had  not  learned  to  read. 

All  good  books,  whether  new  or  old,  present  such  diffi- 
culties of  interpretation,  —  difficulties  often  small  in  them- 
selves but  great  when  they  prevent  that  instant  flush  of 
appreciation  which  literature  demands.  And  therefore, 
if  one  cannot  read  lightly,  easily,  intelligently,  —  why  the 
storehouse  is  locked;  the  golden  books  may  be  purchased 
and  perused,  but  they  will  be  little  better  than  so  much 
paper  and  print.  Two-thirds  of  an  English  course  must 
be  learning  to  search  out  the  meaning  of  the  written  word  ; 
must  be  just  learning  how  to  read. 


TEACHING  ENGLISH  249 

This  is  the  Enghsh  teacher's  programme.  Does  he  carry 
it  out?  In  truth,  it  is  depressing  to  sit  in  a  recitation 
room,  estimating,  while  someone  recites,  and  your  voice 
is  resting,  the  volume  and  the  flow  of  the  streams  of  literary 
instruction  washing  over  the  undergraduates  ;  —  and  then 
to  see  them  bob  up  to  the  surface  at  the  end  of  the  hour, 
seemingly  as  impervious  as  when  their  heads  went  under. 
We  teachers  of  English  propose,  as  I  have  said  above,  to 
ennoble  the  mind  by  showing  it  how  to  feed  upon  the 
thoughts  of  the  great,  to  save  the  state  by  sweetness  and 
light ;  while  our  students  sell  their  Miltons  and  Tennysons 
to  the  second-hand  bookstore,  and  buy  the  machine-made, 
please-the-million  magazines  !  The  pessimist  will  assert 
that  there  is  a  screw  out  somewhere  in  our  intellectual 
platform. 

Not  out,  but  loose.  My  picture  of  the  undergraduate, 
like  Hamlet's  picture  of  Claudius,  is  a  likeness  but  not  a 
faithful  portrait.  The  college  English  course  certainly 
carries  with  it  no  guarantee  of  solid  literary  taste,  no  cer- 
tainty that  the  average  bachelor  of  arts  will  take  a  stand 
against  the  current  cheapening  of  literature.  He  may  have 
a  row  of  leather-bound  pocket  Shakespeares  in  the  living- 
room  book-case,  but  that  is  sometimes  the  only  outward 
evidence  of  his  baptism  into  the  kingdom  of  English  books. 
Further  than  that  you  cannot  be  sure  of  what  teaching 
English  has  done  for  him.  But  neither  can  you  be  certain 
that  this  is  all  it  has  done  for  him.  The  evidence  of  his 
parents  is  not  always  to  be  trusted,  for  the  undergraduate 
feels  that  grown-up  America  does  not  approve  of  bookish- 
ness,  and  so,  if  he  has  any  literary  culture,  keeps  it  to 
himself.  Men  of  letters,  editorial  writers,  and  other 
professional  critics  of  our  intellectual  accomplishments 
are  not  good  judges,  for  they  are  inclined  to  apply  to  a 


250  MODERN  ESSAYS 

recent  graduate  the  standards  of  an  elegant  and  allusive 
brand  of  culture  which  is  certainly  not  American,  though 
in  its  way  admirable  enough.  I  am  doubtful  myself, 
but  this  much  my  experience  has  taught  me,  that,  dis- 
appointing as  the  apparent  results  of  teaching  English 
may  be,  the  actual  results  are  far  more  considerable  than 
pessimists  suppose  —  as  great  perhaps  as  we  can  expect. 

The  mind  of  the  undergraduate  is  like  a  slab  of  coarse- 
grained wood,  upon  which  the  cabinet-maker  lavishes  his 
stain.  Its  empty  pores  soak  in  the  polishing  mixture,  no 
matter  how  richly  it  may  be  applied,  and  in  many  instances 
we  fail  to  get  the  expected  gloss.  Much  English  teaching, 
in  fact,  is  (to  change  the  figure)  subterranean  in  its  effects. 
You  may  remember  no  Tennyson,  and  yet  have  gained  a 
sensitiveness  to  moral  beauty,  and  an  ear  for  the  glory  of 
words.  Your  Shakespeare  may  have  gathered  dust  for  a 
decade,  and  yet  still  be  quickening  your  sympathy  with 
human  nature.  That  glow  in  the  presence  of  a  soaring 
pine  or  towering  mountain ;  that  warmth  of  the  im- 
agination as  some  modern  struggle  recalls  an  ancient 
protagonist ;  the  feeling  that  life  is  always  interesting  some- 
how, somewhere,  —  how  much  of  this  is  due  to  Words- 
worth, Shelley,  Stevenson,  Browning,  or  Keats,  dim  in  the 
memory  perhaps,  but  potent  in  the  sub-consciousness, 
no  one  can  ever  determine.  The  psychologist  will  answer, 
much.  The  layman  must  consider  the  spring,  the  re- 
cuperative power,  the  quantity  and  quality  of  happiness 
among  the  well-read  in  comparison  with  the  unread,  for 
his  reply.  The  results  of  my  own  observation  enable 
me  to  view  even  the  debris  of  lectures  and  study  in  a 
"flunker's"  examination  paper  with  dejection  to  be  sure, 
but  not  with  despair.  The  undergraduate,  I  admit  sorrow- 
fully, is  usually  superficial  in  his  reading,  and  sometimes 


TEACHING  ENGLISH  251 

merely  barbarous  in  the  use  he  makes  of  it ;  but  there  is 
more  gained  from  his  training  in  literature  than  meets 
the  sight. 

Thus  the  effects  of  English  teaching  are  sometimes 
hidden.  But  English  teachers  are  so  common  nowadays 
that  of  them  everyone  may  form  his  own  opinion.  And, 
indeed,  the  rain  of  criticism  falls  upon  just  and  unjust 
alike. 

The  undergraduate,  if  he  takes  the  trouble  to  classify  his 
teachers  of  English  otherwise  than  as  "hard"  or  "easy," 
would  probably  divide  the  species  into  two  types :  the 
highly  polished  variety  with  somewhat  erratic  clothes  and 
an  artistic  temperament ;  and  the  cold  scholar  who  moves 
in  a  world  of  sources,  editions,  and  dates.  I  would  be 
content  with  this  classification,  superficial  as  it  is,  were  it 
not  that  the  parent  of  the  undergraduate,  who  is  footing 
the  bills,  has  made  no  classification  at  all,  and  deserves,  if  he 
wants  it,  a  more  accurate  description  of  the  profession  he  is 
patronizing.  English  teachers,  I  may  say  to  him,  are  of  at 
least  four  different  kinds.  For  convenience,  I  shall  name 
them  the  gossips,  the  inspirationists,  the  scientists,  and  the 
middle-of-the-road  men  whose  ambition  it  is  to  teach 
neither  anecdote,  nor  things  in  general,  nor  mere  facts, 
but  literature. 

The  literary  gossip  is  the  most  engaging,  and  not  the  least 
useful  of  them  all.  As  the  horse's  hoofs  beat  "proputty, 
proputty,  proputty"  for  Tennyson's  greedy  farmer,  so 
"personality"  rings  forever  in  his  brain,  and  constantly 
mingles  in  his  speech.  "The  man  behind  the  book,"  is 
his  worthy  motto ;  and  his  lectures  are  stuffed  with 
biographical  anecdote  until  the  good  stories  spill  over. 
No  humorous  weakness  of  the  Olympians  is  left  without 
its  jest,  and  the  student  learns  more  of  Carlyle's  indiges- 


252  MODERN  ESSAYS 

tion,  Coleridge's  abserit-niincledncss,  or  the  deformity  of 
Pope,  than  of  their  immortal  works. 

The  literary  gossip  is  an  artist.  He  can  raise  dead 
authors  to  life,  and  give  students  of  little  imagination  an 
interest  in  the  books  of  the  past  which  they  never  would 
have  gained  from  mere  printed  texts.  But  he  has  the 
faults  of  the  artistic  temperament.  He  will  sacrifice 
everything  in  order  to  impress  his,  hearers.  Hence  he  is 
never  dull ;    and  when  he  combines  his  skill  in  anecdote. 


with  real  literary  criticism,  he  becomes  a  teaclier  of  such 
power  that  college  presidents  compete  for  his  services. 
But  when  his  talents  do  not  rise  above  the  ordinary,  his 
courses  are  better  designated  vaaitliiville  than  the  teaching 
of  English.  As  the  old  song  has  it,  when  he  is  good  he  is 
very,  very  good,  for  he  ploughs  up  the  unresponsive  mind 
so  that  appreciation  may  grow  there.  But  when  he  is 
bad,  he  is  horrid. 

The  inspirationists  held  the  whole  field  of  English  teach- 
ing until  the  scientists  attacked  them  in  the  rear,  found 
their  ammunition  wagons  lacking  in  facts,  and  put  them 
upon  their  defense.  The  inspirationist  was  —  no  is,  — 
for  he  has  been  sobered  but  not  routed  by  the  onslaughts 
of  German  methodologies,  —  a  fighter  in  the  cause  of 
"uplift"  in  America.  In  1814  he  would  have  been  a 
minister  of  the  gospel,  or  an  apostle  of  political  freedom. 
In  1914  he  uses  Shakespeare,  Milton,  the  novelists,  the 
essayists,  indifferently  to  preach  ideas  —  moral,  political, 
aesthetic,  philosophical,  scientific  —  to  his  undergraduates. 
At  the  club  table  after  hours,  he  orates  at  imaginary 
Freshmen.  "Make  'em  think  !"  he  shouts.  "Make  'em 
feel !  Give  them  ideas  —  and  their  literary  training  will 
take  care  of  itself  ! "  And  the  course  he  offers  is  like  those 
famous  mediaeval  ones,  where  the  whole  duty  of  man,  here 


TEACHING  ENGLISH  253 

and  hereafter,  was  to  be  obtained  from  a  single  professor. 
Indeed,  since  the  field  of  teaching  began  to  be  recruited 
from  predestined  pastors  who  found  the  pulpit  too  narrow 
for  their  activities,  it  is  simply  astonishing  how  much 
ethics,  spirituality,  and  inspiration  generally  has  been 
freed  in  the  classroom.     Ask  the  undergraduates. 

I  mean  no  flippancy.  I  thoroughly  believe  that  it  is 
far  more  important  to  teach  literature  than  the  facts 
about  literature.  And  all  these  things  are  among  the  in- 
gredients of  literature.  I  am  merely  pointing  out  the 
extremes  of  extra-literary  endeavor  into  which  the  re- 
moteness of  the  philosophers,  the  slackening  of  religious 
training  in  the  home,  and  the  absence  of  aesthetic  influences 
in  American  life,  have  driven  some  among  us.  A  friend 
of  mine  begins  his  course  in  Carlyle  with  a  lecture  on  the 
unreality  of  matter.  Browning  with  a  discussion  of  the 
immortality  of  the  soul,  and  Ruskin  with  an  exhibition  of 
pictures.  He  is  responding  to  the  needs  of  the  age.  Like 
most  of  the  inspirationists,  he  does  not  fail  to  teach  some- 
thing ;  like  many  of  them,  he  has  little  time  left  for 
literature. 

The  day  does  not  differ  from  the  night  more  sharply 
than  the  scientist  in  teaching  English  from  the  inspira- 
tionist.  The  literary  scientist  sprang  into  being  when  the 
scientific  activity  of  the  nineteenth  century  reached 
aesthetics  and  began  to  lay  bare  our  inaccuracies  and  our 
ignorance.  Chaucer,  Spenser,  Milton,  Defoe  —  we  knew 
all  too  little  about  their  lives,  and  of  what  we  knew  a 
disgraceful  part  was  wrong.  Our  knowledge  of  the  writers 
of  the  Anglo-Saxon  period,  and  of  the  thirteenth  and 
fifteenth  centuries,  of  the  minor  Elizabethan  dramatists 
and  the  lyricists  of  the  seventeenth  century,  consisted 
chiefly  of   ill-assorted  facts  or  unproved  generahzations. 


254  MODERN  ESSAYS 

Our  catalogue  of  errors  was  a  long  one.  The  response  to 
this  crying  need  for  scholarship,  for  science,  was  slow,  — 
but  when  it  came,  it  came  with  a  rush.  Nowadays,  the 
great  majority  of  university  teachers  of  English  are 
specialists  in  some  form  of  literary  research. 

As  far  as  the  teacher  is  concerned,  the  result  has  doubt- 
less been  good.  There  have  been  broader  backgrounds, 
more  accuracy  in  statement,  less  "bluffing" — in  a  word, 
more  thoroughness ;  and  the  out-and-out  scientists  have 
set  a  pace  in  this  respect  which  other  teachers  of  English 
have  had  to  follow.  But  curiously  enough,  while  the 
teacher  of  English,  and  especially  the  professed  scientist, 
has  become  more  thorough,  the  students  are  said  to  be 
less  so.     How  to  account  for  so  distressing  a  phenomenon  ! 

The  truth  seems  to  be  that  science  in  English  literature 
has  become  so  minute  in  its  investigation  of  details,  so 
scrupulous  in  the  accuracy  of  even  the  most  trivial  state- 
ment, that  the  teacher  who  specializes  in  this  direction 
despairs  of  dragging  his  classes  after  him.  Scholarship  for 
this  scientist  has  become  esoteric.  Neither  the  big  world 
outside,  nor  his  little  world  of  the  classroom,  can  compre- 
hend his  passion  for  date,  and  source,  and  text ;  and,  like 
the  Mormon  who  keeps  his  wives  at  home,  he  has  come  to 
practice  his  faith  without  imposing  it  upon  others.  The 
situation  is  not  entirely  unfortunate.  Until  scientific 
scholarship  has  ended  its  mad  scurryings  for  the  un- 
considered trifles  still  left  uninvestigated,  and  begun  upon 
the  broader  problems  of  criticism  and  of  teaching  which 
will  remain  when  all  the  dates  are  gathered  and  all  the 
sources  hunted  home,  it  is  questionable  whether  it  has  any- 
thing but  facts  to  contribute  to  the  elementary  teaching 
of  English. 

At  present,  the  scientist's  best  position  is  in  the  upper 


TEACHING  ENGLISH  255 

branches  of  a  college  education.  There  he  is  doing  good 
work,  —  except  when  an  emotional,  sensitive  Junior  or 
Senior,  eager  to  be  thrilled  by  literature,  and  to  understand 
it,  is  provided  with  nothing  but  "scientific"  courses.  For 
studying  about  literature  —  and  this  is  the  scientist's  pro- 
gramme —  can  in  no  possible  sense  be  regarded  as  a  satis- 
factory alternative  to  studying  the  thing  itself,  no  matter 
how  great  may  be  its  auxiliary  value.  And  many  a  recent 
graduate  of  many  a  college  who  reads  these  lines,  will 
recognize  his  own  plight  in  that  of  the  youth  who,  finding 
only  gossips  who  amused  him,  inspirationists  who  sermoned 
him,  and  scientists  who  reduced  glowing  poetry  to  a  skele- 
ton of  fact,  decided  that  in  spite  of  the  catalogue,  literature 
itself  was  not  taught  in  his  university. 

What  is  teaching  literature.'^  But  I  have  already  an- 
swered that  question  according  to  my  own  beliefs,  in  the 
earlier  part  of  this  paper.  It  must  be  —  at  least  for  the 
undergraduate  —  instruction  in  the  interpretation  of 
literature ;  it  must  be  teaching  how  to  read.  For  if  the 
boy  is  once  taught  how  to  turn  the  key,  only  such  forces  of 
heredity  and  environment  as  no  teaching  will  utterly  over- 
come, can  prevent  him  from  entering  the  door.  It  is  this 
that  all  wise  teachers  of  English  realize ;  it  is  this  that  the 
middle-of-the-road  men  try  to  put  in  practice.  I  give 
them  this  title  because  they  do  keep  to  the  middle  of  the 
literary  road,  —  because  they  understand  that  the  teacher 
of  English  should  avoid  the  extremes  I  have  depicted  in 
the  preceding  paragraphs,  without  despising  them.  He 
should  master  his  facts  as  the  scientist  does,  because  it  is 
too  late  in  the  day  to  impose  unverified  facts  or  shaky 
generalizations  even  upon  hearers  as  uncritical  as  the 
usual  run  of  undergraduates.  He  should  try  to  inspire  his 
classes  with  the  ideas  and  emotions  of  the  text,  for  to 


256  MODERN  ESSAYS 

teach  the  form  of  a  book  and  neglect  its  contents,  is  as  if 
your  grocer  should  send  you  an  empty  barrel.  He  should 
not  neglect  the  life  and  color  which  literary  biography 
brings  into  his  field.  And  yet  the  aim  of  the  right  kind 
of  instructor  is  no  one  of  these  things.  He  uses  them 
all,  but  merely  as  steps  in  the  attempt  to  teach  his  stu- 
dents how  to  read. 

This  it  is  to  follow  the  golden  mean  and  make  it  actually 
golden  in  our  profession.  And  indeed,  when  one  considers 
that  throughout  America  there  are  hundreds  of  thousands 
calling  themselves  educated  who  cannot  read  Shakespeare, 
or  the  Bible,  or  even  a  good  magazine,  with  justice  to  the 
text ;  when  one  considers  the  treasures  of  literature,  new  as 
well  as  old,  waiting  to  be  used  for  the  increase  of  happiness, 
intelligence,  and  power,  what  else  can  be  called  teaching 
English  ? 


EDWARD  GIBBON  1 

BY 

James  Ford  Rhodes 

Gibbon  is  a  man  of  one  book,  but  that  book  is  a  masterpiece.  In 
1776,  the  birth-year  of  our  country,  he  began  writing  his  "Decline  and 
Fall  of  the  Roman  Empire,"'  —  and  to-day  at  any  bookstore,  you  can 
find  copies  in  endless  editions.  How  wonderful  that  is  !  That  a  drama 
or  romance  should  persist  through  centuries  is  easily  explainable,  since  the 
subject  matter  of  them  is  human  nature,  and  human  nature  has  changed 
but  slightly.  But  why  a  history,  written  much  too  long  after  the  events 
it  describes  to  have  contemporaneous  value,  should  survive  all  more 
recent  studies  based  on  modern  research  and  archeological  investiga- 
tion, —  that  is  the  question.  And  it  is  this  question  that  our  greatest 
living  historian  here  attempts  to  answer.  The  problem  is  presented  in 
two  paragraphs.  The  answer  is  then  sought  in  his  life,  in  his  intellectual 
training,  in  his  attitude  of  mind,  and  in  his  own  point  of  view  regarding 
his  work.  Notice  the  care  with  which  each  phase  of  the  subject  is  proved 
by  citations,  quotations,  and  references.  The  aim  then  is  to  make  the 
reader  intellectually  comprehend  the  writer  of  the  book.  And  as  the 
essay  was  first  delivered  as  a  lecture  at  Harvard  University,  for  such  an 
audience  Dr.  Rhodes  rightfully  emphasizes  the  intellectual  nature  of 
the  appeal. 

No  English  or  American  lover  of  history  visits  Rome 
without  bending  reverent  footsteps  to  the  Church  of  Santa 
Maria  in  Ara  Coeli.  Two  visits  are  necessary,  as  on  the 
first  you  are  at  once  seized  by  the  sacristan,  who  can  con- 

1  Lecture  read  at  Harvard  University,  April  6,  1908,  and  printed  in 
Scribner's  Magazine,   June,  1909.     Reprinted  from  "  Historical  Essays," 
by  permission  of  the  author  and  of  The  Macmillan  Co. 
s  257 


258  IMODERN  ESSAYS 

ceiv'e  of  no  other  motive  for  entering  this  church  on  the 
Capitol  Hill  than  to  see  the  miraculous  Bambino  —  the 
painted  doll  swaddled  in  gold  and  silver  tissue  and  "crusted 
over  with  magnificent  diamonds,  emeralds,  and  rubies." 
When  you  have  heard  the  tale  of  what  has  been  called  "  the 
oldest  medical  practitioner  in  Rome,"  of  his  miraculous 
cures,  of  these  votive  offerings,  the  imaginary  picture  you 
had  conjured  up  is  effaced  ;  and  it  is  better  to  go  away  and 
come  a  second  time  when  the  sacristan  will  recognize 
you  and  leave  you  to  yourself.  Then  you  may  open  your 
Gibbon's  Autobiography  and  read  that  it  was  the  subtle 
influence  of  Italy  and  Rome  that  determined  the  choice, 
from  amongst  many  contemplated  subjects  of  historical 
writing,  of  "The  Decline  and  Fall  of  the  Roman  Empire." 
"In  my  Journal,"  wrote  Gibbon,  "the  place  and  moment 
of  conception  are  recorded;  the  15th  of  October,  1764, 
in  the  close  of  the  evening,  as  I  sat  musing  in  the  Church 
of  the  Franciscan  friars  while  they  were  singing  vespers 
in  the  Temple  of  Jupiter  on  the  ruins  of  the  Capitol."  ^ 
Gibbon  was  twenty-seven  when  he  made  this  fruitful 
visit  of  eighteen  weeks  to  Rome,  and  his  first  impression, 
though  often  quoted,  never  loses  interest,  showing,  as  it 
does,  the  enthusiasm  of  an  unemotional  man.  "At  the 
distance  of  twenty-five  years,"  he  wrote,  "I  can  neither 
forget  nor  express  the  strong  emotions  which  agitated 
my  mind  as  I  first  approached  and  entered  the  Eternal  City. 
After  a  sleepless  night,  I  trod  with  a  lofty  step  the  ruins 
of  the  Forum ;  each  memorable  spot  where  Romulus 
stood  or  Cicero  spoke  or  Caesar  fell  was  at  once  present 
to  my  eye." 

The  admirer  of  Gibbon  as  he  travels  northward  will  stop 
at  Lausanne  and  visit  the  hotel  which  bears  the  historian's 

^  Autobiography,  270. 


EDWARD   GIBBON  259 

name.  Twice  have  I  taken  luncheon  in  the  garden  where 
he  wrote  the  last  words  of  his  history;  and  on  a  third 
visit,  after  lunching  at  another  inn,  I  could  not  fail  to 
admire  the  penetration  of  the  Swiss  concierge.  As  I 
alighted,  he  seemed  to  divine  at  once  the  object  of  my 
visit,  and  before  I  had  half  the  words  of  explanation  out 
of  my  mouth,  he  said,  "  Oh,  yes.  It  is  this  way.  But 
I  cannot  show  you  anything  but  a  spot."  I  have  quoted 
from  Gibbon's  Autobiography  the  expression  of  his  in- 
spiration of  twenty-seven ;  a  fitting  companion-piece  is 
the  reflection  of  the  man  of  fifty.  "I  have  presumed  to 
mark  the  moment  of  conception,"  he  wrote ;  "I  shall  now 
commemorate  the  hour  of  my  final  deliverance.  It  was 
on  the  day,  or  rather  the  night,  of  the  27th  of  June,  1787, 
between  the  hours  of  eleven  and  twelve,  that  I  wrote  the 
last  lines  of  the  last  page  in  a  summer-house  in  my  garden. 
...  I  will  not  dissemble  the  first  emotions  of  joy 
on  the  recovery  of  my  freedom  and  perhaps  the  establish- 
ment of  my  fame.  But  my  pride  was  soon  humbled,  and 
a  sober  melancholy  was  spread  over  my  mind  by  the  idea 
that  I  had  taken  my  everlasting  leave  of  an  old  and  agree- 
able companion."  ^ 

Although  the  idea  was  conceived  when  Gibbon  was 
twenty-seven,  he  was  thirty-one  before  he  set  himself 
seriously  at  work  to  study  his  material.  At  thirty-six 
he  began  the  composition,  and  he  was  thirty-nine,  when, 
in  February,  1776,  the  first  quarto  volume  was  published. 
The  history  had  an  immediate  success.  "My  book," 
he  wrote,  "was  on  every  table  and  almost  on  every 
toilette ;  the  historian  was  crowned  by  the  taste  or  fashion 
of  the  day."  ^  The  first  edition  was  exhausted  in  a  few 
days,  a  second  was  printed  in  1776,  and  next  year  a  third. 

1  Autobiography,  333.  "^  Ibid.,  311. 


260  MODERN  ESSAYS 

The  second  and  third  vohimes,  which  ended  the  history 
of  the  Western  empire,  were  pubhshed  in  1781,  and  seven 
years  later  the  three  volumes  devoted  to  the  Eastern 
empire  saw  the  light.  The  last  sentence  of  the  work, 
written  in  the  summer-house  at  Lausanne,  is,  "It  was 
among  the  ruins  of  the  Capitol  that  I  first  conceived  the 
idea  of  a  work  which  has  amused  and  exercised  near 
twenty  years  of  my  life,  and  which,  however  inadequate 
to  my  own  wishes,  I  finally  deliver  to  the  curiosity  and 
candor  of  the  public." 

This  is  a  brief  account  of  one  of  the  greatest  historical 
works,  if  indeed  it  is  not  the  greatest,  ever  written.  Let 
us  imagine  an  assemblage  of  English,  German,  and 
American  historical  scholars  called  upon  to  answer  the 
question.  Who  is  the  greatest  modern  historian?  No 
doubt  can  exist  that  Gibbon  would  have  a  large  majority 
of  the  voices ;  and  I  think  a  like  meeting  of  French  and 
Italian  scholars  would  indorse  the  verdict.  "Gibbon's 
work  will  never  be  excelled,"  declared  Niebuhr.^  "That 
great  master  of  us  all,"  said  Freeman,  "whose  immortal 
tale  none  of  us  can  hope  to  displace."  ^  Bury,  the  latest 
editor  of  Gibbon,  who  has  acutely  criticised  and  carefully 
weighed  "The  Decline  and  Fall,"  concludes  "that  Gibbon 
is  behind  date  in  many  details.  But  in  the  main  things  he 
is  still  our  master,  above  and  beyond  date."  ^  His  work 
wins  plaudits  from  those  who  believe  that  history  in  its 
highest  form  should  be  literature  and  from  those  who  hold 
that  it  should  be  nothing  more  than  a  scientific  narrative. 
The  disciples  of  Maoaulay  and  Carlyle,  of  Stubbs  and 
Gardiner,  would  be  found  voting  in  unison  in  my  imaginary 

1  Lectures,  763. 

2  Chief  Periods  European  Hist.,  75. 

3  Introduction,  Ixvii. 


EDWARD  GIBBON  261 

Congress.  Gibbon,  writes  Bury,  is  "the  historian  and 
the  man  of  letters,"  thus  ranking  with  Thucydides  and 
Tacitus.  These  three  are  put  in  the  highest  class,  exem- 
plifying that  "brilliance  of  style  and  accuracy  of  statement 
are  perfectly  compatible  in  an  historian."  ^  Accepting 
this  authoritative  classification  it  is  well  worth  while  to 
point  out  the  salient  differences  between  the  ancient 
historians  and  the  modern.  From  Thucydides  we  have 
twenty-four  years  of  contemporary  history  of  his  own 
country.  If  the  whole  of  the  Annals  and  History  of 
Tacitus  had  come  down  to  us,  we  should  have  had  eighty- 
three  years ;  as  it  is,  we  actually  have  forty-one  of  nearly 
contemporary  history  of  the  Roman  Empire.  Gibbon's 
tale  covers  1240  years.  He  went  far  beyond  his  own 
country  for  his  subject,  and  the  date  of  his  termination 
is  three  centuries  before  he  was  born.  Milman  spoke  of 
"the  amplitude,  the  magnificence,  and  the  harmony  of 
Gibbon's  design,"^  and  Bury  writes,  "If  we  take  into 
account  the  vast  range  of  his  work,  his  accuracy  is  amaz- 
ing." ^  Men  have  wondered  and  will  long  wonder  at  the 
brain  with  such  a  grasp  and  with  the  power  to  execute 
skillfully  so  mighty  a  conception.  "The  public  is  seldom 
wrong"  in  their  judgment  of  a  book,  wrote  Gibbon  in  his 
Autobiography,^  and,  if  that  be  true  at  the  time  of  actual 
publication  to  which  Gibbon  intended  to  apply  the  remark, 
how  much  truer  it  is  in  the  long  run  of  years.  "The 
Decline  and  Fall  of  the  Roman  Empire"  has  had  a  life  of 
over  one  hundred  and  thirty  years,  and  there  is  no  indi- 
cation that  it  will  not  endure  as  long  as  any  interest 
is  taken  in  the  study  of  history.  "I  have  never  presumed 
to  accept  a  place  in  the  triumvirate  of  British  historians," 

1  Introduction,  xxxi.  ^  Introduction,  xli. 

2  Preface,  ix.  «  p  324. 


262  MODERN  ESSAYS 

said  Gibbon,  referring  to  Hume  and  Robertson.  But  in 
our  day  Hume  and  Robertson  gather  dust  on  the  shelf, 
while  Gibbon  is  continually  studied  by  students  and  read 
by  serious  men. 

A  work  covering  Gibbon's  vast  range  of  time  would 
have  been  impossible  for  Thucydides  or  Tacitus.  Histori- 
cal skepticism  had  not  been  fully  enough  developed. 
There  had  not  been  a  sufficient  sifting  and  criticism  of 
historical  materials  for  a  master's  work  of  synthesis. 
And  it  is  probable  that  Thucydides  lacked  a  model. 
Tacitus  could  indeed  have  drawn  inspiration  from  the 
Greek,  while  Gibbon  had  lessons  from  both,  showing  a 
profound  study  of  Tacitus  and  a  thorough  acquaintance 
with  Thucydides. 

If  circumstances  then  made  it  impossible  for  the  Greek 
or  the  Roman  to  attempt  history  on  the  grand  scale  of  Gib- 
bon, could  Gibbon  have  written  contemporary  history  with 
accuracy  and  impartiality  equal  to  his  great  predecessors  ? 
This  is  one  of  those  delightful  questions  that  may  be  ever 
discussed  and  never  resolved.  When  twenty-three  years 
old,  arguing  against  the  desire  of  his  father  that  he  should 
go  into  Parliament,  Gibbon  assigned,  as  one  of  the  reasons, 
that  he  lacked  "necessary  prejudices  of  party  and  of 
nation"  ;  ^  and  when  in  middle  life  he  embraced  the  for- 
tunate opportunity  of  becoming  a  member  of  the  House 
of  Commons,  he  thus  summed  up  his  experience,  "The 
eight  sessions  that  I  sat  in  Parliament  were  a  school  of 
civil  prudence,  the  first  and  most  essential  virtue  of  an 
historian."  ^  At  the  end  of  this  political  career.  Gibbon, 
in  a  private  letter  to  an  intimate  Swiss  friend,  gave  the 
reason  why  he  had  embraced  it.  "I  entered  Parliament," 
he  said,  "without  patriotism,  and  without  ambition,  and 

1  Letters,  I,  23.  "  Autobiography,  310. 


EDWARD   GIBBON  263 

I  had  no  other  aim  than  to  secure  the  comfortable  and 
honest  place  of  a  Lord  of  Trade.  I  obtained  this  place  at 
last.  I  held  it  for  three  years,  from  1779  to  1782,  and  the 
net  annual  product  of  it,  being  £750  sterling,  increased  my 
revenue  to  the  level  of  my  wants  and  desires."  ^  His 
retirement  from  Parliament  was  followed  by  ten  years' 
residence  at  Lausanne,  in  the  first  four  of  which  he  com- 
pleted his  history.  A  year  and  a  half  after  his  removal 
to  Lausanne,  he  referred,  in  a  letter  to  his  closest  friend, 
Lord  Sheffield,  to  the  "abyss  of  your  cursed  politics,"  and 
added:  "I  never  was  a  very  warm  patriot  and  I  grow 
every  day  a  citizen  of  the  world.  The  scramble  for  power 
and  profit  at  Westminster  or  St.  James's,  and  the  names  of 
Pitt  and  Fox  become  less  interesting  to  me  than  those  of 
Caesar  and  Pompey."  ^ 

These  expressions  would  seem  to  indicate  that  Gib- 
bon might  have  written  contemporary  history  well 
and  that  the  candor  displayed  in  "The  Decline  and  Fall" 
might  not  have  been  lacking  had  he  written  of  England 
in  his  own  time.  But  that  subject  he  never  contemplated. 
When  twenty-four  years  old  he  had  however  considered 
a  number  of  English  periods  and  finally  fixed  upon  Sir 
Walter  Raleigh  for  his  hero ;  but  a  year  later,  he  wrote 
in  his  journal:  "I  shrink  with  terror  from  the  modern 
history  of  England,  where  every  character  is  a  problem, 
and  every  reader  a  friend  or  an  enemy ;  where  a  writer  is 
supposed  to  hoist  a  flag  of  party  and  is  devoted  to  damna- 
tion by  the  adverse  faction.  ...  I  must  embrace  a  safer 
and  more  extensive  theme."  ^ 

How  well  Gibbon  knew  himself !  Despite  his  coolness 
and  candor,  war  and  revolution  revealed  his  strong  Tory 
prejudices,  which  he  undoubtedly  feared  might  color  any 

1  Letters,  II,  36.  2  Ibid.,  127.  ^  Autobiography,  196. 


064  MODERN  ESSAYS 

history  of  England  that  he  might  undertake.  "I  took 
my  seat,"  in  the  House  of  Commons,  he  wrote,  "at  the 
beginning  of  the  memorable  contest  between  Great  Britain 
and  America;  and  supported  with  many  a  sincere  and 
silent  vote  the  rights  though  perhaps  not  the  interests 
of  the  mother  country."  ^  In  1782  he  recorded  the  con- 
clusion:  "The  American  war  had  once  been  the  favorite 
of  the  country,  the  pride  of  England  was  irritated  by  the 
resistance  of  her  colonies,  and  the  executive  power  was 
driven  by  national  clamor  into  the  most  vigorous  and 
coercive  measures."  But  it  was  a  fruitless  contest. 
Armies  were  lost ;  the  debt  and  taxes  were  increased ;  the 
hostile  confederacy  of  France,  Spain  and  Holland  was  dis- 
quieting. As  a  result  the  war  became  unpopular  and  Lord 
North's  ministry  fell.  Dr.  Johnson  thought  that  no  nation 
not  absolutely  conquered  had  declined  so  much  in  so 
short  a  time.  "We  seem  to  be  sinking,"  he  said.  "I  am 
afraid  of  a  civil  war."  Dr.  Franklin,  according  to  Horace 
Walpole,  said  "he  would  furnish  Mr.  Gibbon  with  ma- 
terials for  writing  the  History  of  the  Decline  of  the  British 
Empire."  With  his  country  tottering,  the  self-centered 
but  truthful  Gibbon  could  not  avoid  mention  of  his 
personal  loss,  due  to  the  fall  of  his  patron.  Lord  North. 
" I  was  stripped  of  a  convenient  salary,"  he  said,  "after 
having  enjoyed  it  about  three  years."  ^ 

The  outbreak  of  the  French  Revolution  intensified  his 
conservatism.  He  was  then  at  Lausanne,  the  tranquillity 
of  which  was  broken  up  by  the  dissolution  of  the  neighbor- 
ing kingdom.  Many  Lausanne  families  were  terrified  by 
the  menace  of  bankruptcy.     "This  town  and  country," 

1  Autobiography,  310.  "I  am  more  and  more  convinced  that  we  have 
both  the  right  and  power  on  our  side."     Letters,  I,  248. 

2  Hill's  ed.  Gibbon  Autobiography,  212,  213,  314. 


EDWARD  GIBBON  265 

Gibbon  wrote,  "are  crowded  with  noble  exiles,  and  we 
sometimes  count  in  an  assembly  a  dozen  princesses  and 
duchesses."  ^  Bitter  disputes  between  them  and  the 
triumphant  Democrats  disturbed  the  harmony  of  social 
circles.  Gibbon  espoused  the  cause  of  the  royalists.  "I 
beg  leave  to  subscribe  my  assent  to  Mr.  Burke's  creed  on 
the  Revolution  of  France,"  he  wrote.  "I  admire  his 
eloquence,  I  approve  his  politics,  I  adore  his  chivalry, 
and  I  can  almost  excuse  his  reverence  for  Church  establish- 
ments." ^  Thirteen  days  after  the  massacre  of  the  Swiss 
guard  in  the  attack  on  the  Tuileries  in  August,  1792, 
Gibbon  wrote  to  Lord  Sheffield,  "The  last  revolution  of 
Paris  appears  to  have  convinced  almost  everybody  of  the 
fatal  consequences  of  Democratical  principles  which  lead 
by  a  path  of  flowers  into  the  abyss  of  hell."  ^  Gibbon, 
who  was  astonished  by  so  few  things  in  history,  wrote 
Sainte-Beuve,  was  amazed  by  the  French  Revolution.* 
Nothing  could  be  more  natural.  The  historian  in  his  study 
may  consider  the  fall  of  dynasties,  social  upheavals,  violent 
revolutions,  and  the  destruction  of  order  without  a  tremor. 
The  things  have  passed  away.  The  events  furnish  food 
for  his  reflections  and  subjects  for  his  pen,  while  sanguine 
uprisings  at  home  or  in  a  neighboring  country  in  his  own 
time  inspire  him  with  terror  lest  the  oft-prophesied  dis- 
solution of  society  is  at  hand.  It  is  the  difl^erence  between 
the  earthquake  in  your  own  city  and  the  one  3000  miles 
away.  As  Gibbon's  pocket-nerve  was  sensitive,  it  may  be 
he  was  also  thinking  of  the  £1300  he  had  invested  in  1784 
in  the  new  loan  of  the  King  of  France,  deeming  the  French 
funds  as  solid  as  the  English.^ 

It  is  well  now  to  repeat  our  dictum  that  Gibbon  is  the 

1  Letters,  II,  249.  2  Autobiography,  342.  ^  Letters,  II,  310. 

*  Causeries  du  Lundi,  viii,  469.  ^  Letters,  II,  98. 


266  MODEIIN  ESSAYS 

greatest  modern  historian,  but,  in  reasserting  this,  it  is  no 
more  than  fair  to  cite  the  oi)inions  of  two  dissentients  — 
tlie  great  hterary  historians  of  the  nineteenth  century, 
Macaulay  and  Carlyle.  "The  truth  is,"  wrote  Macaulay 
in  his  diary,  "that  I  admire  no  historians  much  except 
Herodotus,  Thucydides,  and  Tacitus.  .  .  .  There  is 
merit  no  doubt  in  Hume,  Robertson,  Voltaire,  and  Gibbon. 
Yet  it  is  not  the  thing.  I  have  a  conception  of  history  more 
just,  I  am  confident,  than  theirs."  ^  "Gibbon,"  said 
Carlyle  in  a  public  lecture,  is  "a  greater  historian  than 
Robertson  but  not  so  great  as  Hume.  With  all  his 
swagger  and  bombast  no  man  ever  gave  a  more  futile 
account  of  human  things  than  he  has  done  of  the  decline 
and  fall  of  the  Roman  Empire;  assigning  no  profound 
cause  for  these  phenomena,  nothing  but  diseased  nerves, 
and  all  sorts  of  miserable  motives,  to  the  actors  in  them."  ^ 
Carlyle's  statement  shows  envious  criticism  as  well  as  a 
prejudice  in  favor  of  his  brother  Scotchman.  It  was  made 
in  1838,  since  when  opinion  has  raised  Gibbon  to  the  top, 
for  he  actually  lives  while  Hume  is  read  perfunctorily,  if 
at  all.  Moreover  among  the  three  —  Gibbon,  Macaulay, 
and  Carlyle  —  whose  works  are  literature  as  well  as  his- 
tory, modern  criticism  has  no  hesitation  in  awarding  the 
palm  to  Gibbon. 

Before  finally  deciding  upon  his  subject  Gibbon  thought 
of  "The  History  of  the  Liberty  of  the  Swiss"  and  "The 
History  of  the  Republic  of  Florence  under  the  House 
of  Medicis,"  ^  but  in  the  end,  as  we  have  seen,  he  settled 
on  the  later  history  of  the  Roman  Empire,  showing,  as 
Lowell  said  of  Parkman,  his  genius  in  the  choice  of  his 

1  Trevelyan,  II,  232. 

2  Lectures  on  the  Hist,  of  Literature,  185. 
'  Autobiograi)liy,  19G. 


EDWARD   GIBBON  267 

subject.  His  history  really  begins  with  the  death  of  Mar- 
cus Aurelius,  180  a.d.,  but  the  main  narrative  is  preceded 
by  three  excellent  introductory  chapters,  covering  in 
Bury's  edition  eighty-two  pages.  After  the  completion 
of  his  work,  he  regretted  that  he  had  not  begun  it  at  an 
earlier  period.  On  the  first  page  of  his  own  printed  copy 
of  his  book  where  he  announces  his  design,  he  has  entered 
this  marginal  note :  "Should  I  not  have  given  the  history 
of  that  fortunate  period  which  was  interposed  between 
two  iron  ages  ?  Should  I  not  have  deduced  the  decline  of 
the  Empire  from  the  Civil  Wars  that  ensued  after  the  Fall 
of  Nero  or  even  from  the  tyranny  which  succeeded  the 
reign  of  Augustus  ?  Alas  !  I  should ;  but  of  what  avail 
is  this  tardy  knowledge  .-^ "  ^  We  may  echo  Gibbon's 
regret  that  he  had  not  commenced  his  history  with  the 
reign  of  Tiberius,  as,  in  his  necessary  use  of  Tacitus,  we 
should  have  had  the  running  comment  of  one  great 
historian  on  another,  of  which  we  have  a  significant 
example  in  Gibbon's  famous  sixteenth  chapter  wherein  he 
discusses  Tacitus's  account  of  the  persecution  of  the 
Christians  by  Nero.  With  his  power  of  historic  divina- 
tion, he  would  have  so  absorbed  Tacitus  and  his  time 
that  the  history  would  almost  have  seemed  a  collaboration 
between  two  great  and  sympathetic  minds.  "Tacitus," 
he  wrote,  "very  frequently  trusts  to  the  curiosity  or 
reflection  of  his  readers  to  supply  those  intermediate 
circumstances  and  ideas,  which,  in  his  extreme  concise- 
ness, he  has  thought  proper  to  suppress."  ^  How  Gibbon 
would  have  filled  those  gaps !  Though  he  was  seldom 
swayed  by  enthusiasm,  his  admiration  of  the  Roman 
historian  fell  little  short  of  idolatry.  His  references  in 
"The  Decline  and  Fall"  are  many,  and  some  of  them 
1  Bury's  ed.,  xxxv.  ^  Decline  and  Fall,  Smith's  ed.,  236. 


2C8  MODERN  ESSAYS 

are  here  worth  recalling  to  mind.  "In  their  primitive 
state  of  simplicity  and  independence,"  he  wrote,  "the 
Germans  were  surveyed  by  the  discerning  eye  and  de- 
lineated by  the  masterly  pencil  of  Tacitus,  the  first  of 
historians  who  applied  the  science  of  philosophy  to  the 
study  of  facts."  ^  Again  he  speaks  of  him  as  "the  philo- 
sophic historian  whose  writings  will  instruct  the  last 
generation  of  mankind."  -  And  in  Chapter  XVI  he 
devoted  five  pages  to  citation  from,  and  comment  on, 
Tacitus,  and  paid  him  one  of  the  most  splendid  tributes 
one  historian  ever  paid  another.  "To  collect,  to  dispose, 
and  to  adorn  a  series  of  fourscore  years  in  an  immortal 
work,  every  sentence  of  which  is  pregnant  with  the  deepest 
observations  and  the  most  lively  images,  was  an  under- 
taking sufficient  to  exercise  the  genius  of  Tacitus  himself 
during  the  greatest  part  of  his  life."  ^  So  much  for 
admiration.  That,  nevertheless,  Gi})bon  could  wield  the 
critical  pen  at  the  expense  of  the  historian  he  rated  so 
highly,  is  shown  by  a  marginal  note  in  his  own  printed 
copy  of  "The  Decline  and  Fall."  It  will  be  remembered 
that  Tacitus  published  his  History  and  wrote  his  Annals 
during  the  reign  of  Trajan,  whom  he  undoubtedly  re- 
spected and  admired.  He  referred  to  the  reigns  of  Nerva 
and  Trajan  in  suggested  contrast  to  that  of  Domitian 
as  "times  when  men  were  blessed  with  the  rare  privilege 
of  thinking  with  freedom,  and  uttering  what  they 
thought."  ■*  It  fell  to  both  Tacitus  and  Gibbon  to  speak 
of  the  testament  of  Augustus  which,  after  his  death,  was 
read  in  the  Senate :  and  Tacitus  wrote,  Augustus  "added 
a  recommendation  to  keep  the  empire  within  fixed  limits," 
on  which  he  thus  commented,  "but  whether  from  appre- 

1  Decline  and  Fall,  Smith's  ed.,  I,  349.  2  jfj^^i^  jj   35, 

3 II,  235.  «  History,  I,  1. 


EDWARD   GIBBON  269 

hension  for  its  safety,  or  jealousy  of  future  rivals,  is  un- 
certain." ^  Gibbon  thus  criticised  this  comment:  "Why 
must  rational  advice  be  imputed  to  a  base  or  foolish 
motive?  To  what  cause,  error,  malevolence,  or  flattery, 
shall  I  ascribe  the  unworthy  alternative  ?  Was  the  his- 
torian dazzled  by  Trajan's  conquests?"  ^ 

The  intellectual  training  of  the  greatest  modern  his- 
torian is  a  matter  of  great  interest.  "From  my  early 
youth,"  wrote  Gibbon  in  his  Autobiography,  "I  aspired 
to  the  character  of  an  historian."^  He  had  "an  early 
and  invincible  love  of  reading"  which  he  said  he  "would 
not  exchange  for  the  treasures  of  India"  and  which  led 
him  to  a  "vague  and  multifarious"  perusal  of  books. 
Before  he  reached  the  age  of  fifteen  he  matriculated  at 
Magdalen  College,  giving  this  account  of  his  preparation. 
"I  arrived  at  Oxford,"  he  said,  "with  a  stock  of  erudition 
that  might  have  puzzled  a  Doctor  and  a  degree  of  ignorance 
of  which  a  schoolboy  would  have  been  ashamed."  ^  He 
did  not  adapt  himself  to  the  life  or  the  method  of  Oxford, 
and  from  them  apparently  derived  no  benefit.  "I  spent 
fourteen  months  at  Magdalen  College,"  he  wrote  ;  "they 
proved  the  fourteen  months  the  most  idle  and  unprofitable 
of  my  whole  life."  ^  He  became  a  Roman  Catholic.  It 
was  quite  characteristic  of  this  bookish  man  that  his  con- 
version was  effected,  not  by  the  emotional  influence  of 
some  proselytizer,  but  by  the  reading  of  books.  English 
translations  of  two  famous  works  of  Bossuet  fell  into  his 
hands.  "I  read,"  he  said,  "I  applauded,  I  believed  .  .  . 
and  I  surely  fell  by  a  noble  hand."  Before  a  priest  in 
London,  on  June  8,  1753,  he  privately  "abjured  the  errors 
of  heresy"  and  was  admitted  into  the  "pale  of  the  church." 

'Annals,  I,  11.  ^  Bury's  introduction,  xxxv. 

3  Autobiography,  193.  *  Ibid.,  48,  59.  ^  7^/^?.,  67. 


270  MODERN  ESSAYS 

But  at  that  time  this  was  a  serious  business  for  both  priest 
and  proselyte.  For  the  rule  laid  down  by  Blackstone 
was  this,  "Where  a  person  is  reconciled  to  the  see  of  Rome, 
or  procures  others  to  be  reconciled,  the  offence  amounts 
to  High-Treason."  This  severe  rule  was  not  enforced, 
but  there  were  milder  laws  under  which  a  priest  might 
suffer  perpetual  imprisonment  and  the  proselyte's  estate 
be  transferred  to  his  nearest  relations.  Under  such  laws 
prosecutions  were  had  and  convictions  obtained.  Little 
wonder  was  it  when  Gibbon  apprised  his  father  in  an 
"elaborate  controversial  epistle"  of  the  serious  step  which 
he  had  taken,  that  the  elder  Gibbon  should  be  astonished 
and  indignant.  In  his  passion  he  divulged  the  secret 
which  effectually  closed  the  gates  of  Magdalen  College  to 
his  son,^  who  was  packed  off  to  Lausanne  and  "settled 
under  the  roof  and  tuition"  of  a  Calvinist  minister .^ 
Edward  Gibbon  passed  nearly  five  years  at  Lausanne, 
from  the  age  of  sixteen  to  that  of  twenty-one,  and  they 
were  fruitful  years  for  his  education.  It  was  almost 
entirely  an  affair  of  self -training,  as  his  tutor  soon  perceived 
that  the  student  had  gone  beyond  the  teacher  and  allowed 
him  to  pursue  his  own  special  bent.  After  his  history 
was  published  and  his  fame  won,  he  recorded  this  opinion  : 
"  In  the  life  of  every  man  of  letters  there  is  an  sera,  from  a 
level,  from  whence  he  soars  with  his  own  wings  to  his  proper 
height,  and  the  most  important  part  of  his  education  is 
that  which  he  bestows  on  himself."  ^  This  was  certainly 
true  in  Gibbon's  case.  On  his  arrival  at  Lausanne  he 
hardly  knew  any  French,  but  before  he  returned  to  Eng- 
land he  thought  spontaneously  in  French  and  under- 
stood, spoke,  and  wrote  it  better  than  he  did  his  mother 

1  Autobiography,  86  et  seq.;  Hill's  ed.,  69,  291. 
'/6i<i.,  131.  Uhid.,\^l. 


EDWARD   GIBBON  271 

tongue.^  He  read  Montesquieu  frequently  and  was 
struck  with  his  "energy  of  style  and  boldness  of  hypothe- 
sis." Among  the  books  which  "may  have  remotely  con- 
tributed to  form  the  historian  of  the  Roman  Empire" 
were  the  Provincial  Letters  of  Pascal,  which  he  read  "with 
a  new  pleasure"  almost  every  year.  From  them  he  said, 
"I  learned  to  manage  the  weapon  of  grave  and  temperate 
irony,  even  on  subjects  of  ecclesiastical  solemnity."  As 
one  thinks  of  his  chapters  in  "The  Decline  and  Fall" 
on  Julian,  one  is  interested  to  know  that  during  this 
period  he  was  introduced  to  the  life  and  times  of  this 
Roman  emperor  by  a  book  written  by  a  French  abbe.  He 
read  Locke,  Grotius,  and  Puffendorf,  but  unquestionably 
his  greatest  knowledge,  mental  discipline,  and  peculiar 
mastery  of  his  own  tongue  came  from  his  diligent  and 
systematic  study  of  the  Latin  classics.  He  read  nearly 
all  of  the  historians,  poets,  orators,  and  philosophers, 
going  over  for  a  second  or  even  a  third  time  Terence,  Virgil, 
Horace,  and  Tacitus.  He  mastered  Cicero's  Orations 
and  Letters  so  that  they  became  ingrained  in  his  mental 
fiber,  and  he  termed  these  and  his  other  w^orks,  "a  library 
of  eloquence  and  reason."  "As  I  read  Cicero,"  he  wrote, 
"I  applauded  the  observation  of  Quintilian,  that  every 
student  may  judge  of  his  own  proficiency  by  the  satis- 
faction which  he  receives  from  the  Roman  orator."  And 
again,  "Cicero's  epistles  may  in  particular  afford  the 
models  of  every  form  of  correspondence  from  the  careless 
effusions  of  tenderness  and  friendship  to  the  well-guarded 
declaration  of  discreet  and  dignified  resentment."  ^ 
Gibbon  never  mastered  Greek  as  he  did  Latin ;  and  Dr. 
Smith,  one  of  his  editors,  points  out  where  he  has  fallen 
into  three  errors  from  the  use  of  the   French   or   Latin 

1  Ibid.,  13-1.  -  2  Ibid.,  139-142. 


272  MODERN  ESSAYS 

translation  of  Procopius  instead  of  consulting  the  original.^ 
Indeed  he  himself  has  disclosed  one  defect  of  self-training. 
Referring  to  his  youthful  residence  at  Lausanne,  he  wrote  : 
"I  worked  my  way  through  about  half  the  Iliad,  and  after- 
wards interpreted  alone  a  large  portion  of  Xenophon  and 
Herodotus.  But  my  ardor,  destitute  of  aid  and  emulation, 
was  gradually  cooled  and,  from  the  barren  task  of  searching 
words  in  a  lexicon,  I  withdrew  to  the  free  and  familiar 
conversation  of  Virgil  and  Tacitus."  ^ 

All  things  considered,  however,  it  was  an  excellent  train- 
ing for  a  historian  of  the  Roman  Empire.  But  all  except 
the  living  knowledge  of  French  he  might  have  had  in  his 
"elegant  apartment  in  Magdalen  College"  just  as  well  as 
in  his  "ill-contrived  and  ill-furnished  small  chamber" 
in  "an  old  inconvenient  house,"  situated  in  a  "narrow 
gloomy  street,  the  most  unfrequented  of  an  unhandsome 
town"  ;  3  and  in  Oxford  he  would  have  had  the  "aid  and 
emulation"  of  which  at  Lausanne  he  sadly  felt  the  lack. 

The  Calvinist  minister,  his  tutor,  was  a  more  useful 
guide  for  Gibbon  in  the  matter  of  religion  than  in  his  in- 
tellectual training.  Through  his  efforts  and  Gibbon's 
"private  reflections,"  Christmas  Day,  1754,  one  year 
and  a  half  after  his  arrival  at  Lausanne,  was  witness  to 
his  reconversion,  as  he  then  received  the  sacrament  in 
the  Calvinistic  Church.  "The  articles  of  the  Romish 
creed,"  he  said,  had  "disappeared  Hke  a  dream";  and 
he  wrote  home  to  his  aunt,  "I  am  now  a  good  Protestant 
and  am  extremely  glad  of  it."  * 

An  intellectual  and  social  experience  of  value  was  his 
meeting  with  Voltaire,  who  had  set  up  a  theater  in  the 
neighborhood  of  Lausanne  for  the  performance  mainly 

1  Smith's  ed.,  V,  108,  130,  231.  s  Ibid,  132. 

2  Autobiography,  141.  ^  ujipg  ^j^  gg^  ggg 


EDWARD  GIBBON  273 

of  his  own  plays.  Gibbon  seldom  failed  to  procure  a 
ticket  to  these  representations.  Voltaire  played  the  parts 
suited  to  his  years ;  his  declamation.  Gibbon  thought, 
was  old-fashioned,  and  "he  expressed  the  enthusiasm  of 
poetry  rather  than  the  feelings  of  nature."  "The  parts 
of  the  young  and  fair,"  he  said,  "were  distorted  by  Vol- 
taire's fat  and  ugly  niece."  Despite  this  criticism,  these 
performances  fostered  a  taste  for  the  French  theater,  to  the 
abatement  of  his  idolatry  for  Shakespeare,  which  seemed 
to  him  to  be  "inculcated  from  our  infancy  as  the  first 
duty  of  an  Englishman."  ^  Personally,  Voltaire  and 
Gibbon  did  not  get  on  well  together.  Dr.  Hill  suggests 
that  Voltaire  may  have  slighted  the  "  English  youth,"  and 
if  this  is  correct,  Gibbon  was  somewhat  spiteful  to  carry 
the  feeling  more  than  thirty  years.  Besides  the  criticism 
of  the  acting,  he  called  Voltaire  "the  envious  bard" 
because  it  was  only  with  much  reluctance  and  ill-humor 
that  he  permitted  the  performance  of  Iphigenie  of  Racine. 
Nevertheless,  Gibbon  is  impressed  with  the  social  influence 
of  the  great  Frenchman.  "The  wit  and  philosophy  of 
Voltaire,  his  table  and  theatre,"  he  wrote,  "refined  in  a 
visible  degree  the  manners  of  Lausanne,  and  however 
addicted  to  study,  I  enjoyed  my  share  of  the  amusements 
of  society.  After  the  theatrical  representations,  I  some- 
times supped  with  the  actors  :  I  was  now  familiar  in  some, 
and  acquainted  in  many,  houses ;  and  my  evenings  were 
generally  devoted  to  cards  and  conversation,  either  in 
private  parties  or  numerous  assemblies."  ^ 

Gibbon  was  twenty-one  when  he  returned  to  England. 
Dividing  his  time  between  London  and  the  country,  he 
continued  his  self-culture.  He  read  English,  French, 
and  Latin,  and  took  up  the  study  of  Greek.      "  Every  day, 

^Autobiography,  149.  ^  Ibid.,  149. 

T 


274  MODERN  ESSAYS 

every  hour,"  he  wrote,  "was  agreeably  filled";    and  "I 
was  never  less  alone  than  when  by  myself."  ^     He  read 
repeatedly  Robertson  and  Hume,  and  has  in  the  words  of 
Sainte-Beuve  left  a  testimony  so  spirited  and  so  delicately 
expressed  as  could  have  come  only  from  a  man  of  taste 
who    appreciated    Xenophon.^     "The    perfect    composi- 
tion, the  nervous  language,"  wrote  Gibbon,  "the    well- 
turned  periods  of  Dr.  Robertson  inflamed  me  to  the  ambi- 
tious hope  that  I  might  one  day  tread  in  his  footsteps ; 
the  calm  philosophy,  the  careless  inimitable   beauties  of 
his  friend  and  rival,  often  forced  me  to  close  the  volume 
with  a  mixed  sensation  of  delight  and  despair."  ^     He 
made  little  progress  in  London  society  and  his  solitary 
evenings  were  passed  with  his  books,  but  he  consoled  him- 
self by  thinking  that  he  lost  nothing  by  a  withdrawal  from 
a  "noisy  and  expensive  scene  of  crowds  without  company, 
and  dissipation  without  pleasure."     At  twenty-four  he 
published  his  "Essay  on  the  Study  of  Literature,"  begun 
at  Lausanne  and  written  entirely  in  French.     This  pos- 
sesses no  interest  for  the  historical  student  except  to  know 
the  bare  fact  of  the  writing  and  publication  as  a  step  in 
the  intellectual  development  of  the  historian.     Sainte- 
Beuve  in  his  two  essays  on  Gibbon  devoted  three  pages  to 
an  abstract  and  criticism  of  it,  perhaps  because  it  had  a 
greater  .success  in  France  than  in  England  ;    and  his  opinion 
of    Gibbon's    language    is    interesting.     "The    French," 
Sainte-Beuve  wrote,  "is  that  of  one  who  has  read  Mon- 
tesquieu much  and  imitates  him ;  it  is  correct,  but  artificial 
French."  * 

Then  followed  two  and  a  half  years'  service  in  the  Hamp- 
shire militia.     But  he  did  not  neglect  his  reading.     He 

1  Autobiography,  161.  ^  Causeries  du  Lundi,  VIII,  445. 

3  Autobiography,  167.  *  Ibid.,  446. 


EDWARD   GIBBON  275 

mastered  Homer,  whom  he  termed  "the  Bible  of  the  an- 
cients," and  in  the  militia  he  acquired  "a  just  and  indelible 
knowledge"  of  what  he  called  "the  first  of  languages." 
And  his  love  for  Latin  abided  also  :  "On  every  march,  in 
every  journey,  Horace  was  always  in  my  pocket  and  often 
in  my  hand."  ^  Practical  knowledge  he  absorbed  almost 
insensibly.  "The  daily  occupations  of  the  militia,"  he 
wrote,  "introduced  me  to  the  science  of  Tactics"  and  led 
to  the  study  of  "the  precepts  of  Polybius  and  Csesar." 
In  this  connection  occurs  the  remark  which  admirers  of 
Gibbon  will  never  tire  of  citing  :  "A  familiar  view  of  the 
discipline  and  evolutions  of  a  modern  battalion  gave  me  a 
clearer  notion  of  the  Phalanx  and  the  Legion ;  and  the 
Captain  of  the  Hampshire  Grenadiers  (the  reader  may 
smile)  has  not  been  useless  to  the  historian  of  the  decline 
and  fall  of  the  Roman  Empire."  ^  The  grand  tour  followed 
his  militia  service.  Three  and  a  half  months  in  Paris, 
and  a  revisit  to  Lausanne  preceded  the  year  tliat  he  passed 
in  Italy.  Of  the  conception  of  the  History  of  the  Decline 
and  Fall,  during  his  stay  in  Rome,  I  have  already  spoken. 
On  his  return  to  England,  contemplating  "the  decline 
and  fall  of  Rome  at  an  awful  distance,"  he  began,  in  col- 
laboration with  the  Swiss  Deyverdun,  his  bosom  friend,  a 
history  of  Switzerland  written  in  French.  During  the 
winter  of  1767,  the  first  book  of  it  was  submitted  to  a 
literary  society  of  foreigners  in  London.  As  the  author 
was  unknown  the  strictures  were  free  and  the  verdict 
unfavorable.  Gibbon  was  present  at  the  meeting  and 
related  that  "the  momentary  sensation  was  painful,"  but, 
on  cooler  reflection,  he  agreed  with  his  judges  and  intended 
to  consign  his  manuscript  to  the  flames.  But  this,  as  Lord 
Shefiield,  his  literary  executor  and  first  editor,  shows  con- 

1  Autobiography,  Hill's  ed.,  142.  2  75^,^  258. 


276  MODERN  ESSAYS 

clusively,  he  neglected  to  do.^  This  essay  of  Gibbon's 
possesses  interest  for  us,  inasmuch  as  David  Hume  read 
it,  and  wrote  to  Gibbon  a  friendly  letter,  in  which  he  said  : 
"I  have  perused  your  manuscript  with  great  pleasure  and 
satisfaction.  I  have  only  one  objection,  derived  from  the 
language  in  which  it  is  written.  Why  do  you  compose 
in  French,  and  carry  faggots  into  the  wood,  as  Horace 
says  with  regard  to  Romans  who  wrote  in  Greek?"  ^ 
This  critical  query  of  Hume  must  have  profoundly  in- 
fluenced Gibbon.  Next  year  he  began  to  work  seriously 
on  "The  Decline  and  Fall"  and  five  years  later  began  the 
composition  of  it  in  English.  It  does  not  appear  that  he 
had  any  idea  of  writing  his  magnum  opus  in  French. 

In  this  rambling  discourse,  in  which  I  have  purposely 
avoided  relating  the  life  of  Gibbon  in  anything  like  a 
chronological  order,  we  return  again  and  again  to  the  great 
History.  And  it  could  not  well  be  otherwise.  For  if 
Edward  Gibbon  could  not  have  proudly  said,  I  am  the 
author  of  "six  volumes  in  quartos"  ^  he  would  have  had 
no  interest  for  us.  Dr.  Hill  writes,  "For  one  reader  who 
has  read  his  'Decline  and  Fall,'  there  are  at  least  a  score 
who  have  read  his  Autobiography,  and  who  know  him, 
not  as  the  great  historian,  but  as  a  man  of  a  most  original 
and  interesting  nature."  *  But  these  twenty  people  would 
never  have  looked  into  the  Autobiography  had  it  not  been 
the  life  of  a  great  historian;  indeed  the  Autobiography 
would  never  have  been  written  except  to  give  an  account 
of  a  great  life  work.  "  The  Decline  and  Fall,"  therefore,  is 
the  thing  about  which  all  the  other  incidents  of  his  life 
revolve.  The  longer  this  history  is  read  and  studied, 
the  greater  is  the  appreciation  of  it.  Dean  Milman  fol- 
lowed Gibbon's  track  through  many  portions  of  his  work, 

1  Autobiography,  277.        ^  /j^^/,        3  Letters,  11,  279.       ^  Preface,  x. 


EDWARD  GIBBON  277 

and  read  his  authorities,  ending  with  a  deliberate  judgment 
in  favor  of  his  "general  accuracy."     "  Many  of  his  seeming 
errors,"  he  wrote,  "are  almost  inevitable  from  the  close 
condensation  of  his  matter."  ^     Guizot  had  three  different 
opinions  based  on  three  various  readings.     After  the  first 
rapid  perusal,  the  dominant  feeling  was  one   of   interest 
in  a  narrative,  always  animated  in  spite  of  its    extent, 
always  clear  and  limpid  in  spite  of  the  variety  of  objects. 
During  the  second  reading,  when  he  examined  particularly 
certain  points,  he  was  somewhat  disappointed ;    he  en- 
countered some  errors  either  in  the  citations  or  in  the  facts 
and  especially  shades  and  strokes  of  partiality  which  led 
him  to  a  comparatively  rigorous  judgment.     In  the  ensuing 
complete  third   reading,   the  first   impression,   doubtless 
corrected  by  the   second,   but  not   destroyed,   survived 
and  was   maintained ;    and   with  some  restrictions   and 
reservations,  Guizot  declared  that,  concerning  that  vast 
and  able  work,  there  remained  with  him  an  appreciation  of 
the  immensity  of  research,  the  variety  of  knowledge,  the 
sagacious  breadth  and  especially  that  truly  philosophical 
rectitude  of  a  mind  which  judges  the  past  as  it  would  judge 
the  present.2     Mommsen  said  in  1894:    "Amid  all    the 
changes  that  have  come  over  the  study  of  the  history  of  the 
Roman  Empire,  in  spite  of  all  the  rush  of  the  new  evidence 
that  has  poured  in  upon  us  and    almost   overwhelmed 
us,  in  spite  of  changes  which  must  be  made,  in  spite  of 
alterations  of  view,  or  alterations  even  in  the  aspect  of 
great  characters,  no  one  would  in  the  future  be  able  to 
read  the  history  of  the  Roman  Empire  unless  he   read, 
possibly  with  a  fuller  knowledge,  but  with  the  broad  views, 
the  clear  insight,  the  strong  grasp  of  Edward  Gibbon."  ^ 

1  Smith's  ed.,  I,  xi.  ^  Causeries  du  Lundi,  VIII,  453. 

^  London  Times,  November  16,  1894. 


278  MODERN  ESSAYS 

It  is  difficult  for  an  admirer  of  Gibbon  to  refrain  from 
quoting  some  of  his  favorite  passages.  The  opinion  of  a 
great  historian  on  history  always  possesses  interest.  His- 
tory, wrote  Gibbon,  is  "little  more  than  the  register  of 
the  crimes,  follies,  and  misfortunes  of  mankind."  Again, 
"Wars  and  the  administration  of  public  affairs  are  the 
principal  subjects  of  history."  And  the  following  cannot 
fail  to  recall  a  similar  thought  in  Tacitus,  "  History  under- 
takes to  record  the  transactions  of  the  past  for  the  instruc- 
tion of  future  ages."  ^  Two  references  to  religion  under 
the  Pagan  empire  are  always  worth  repeating.  "The 
various  modes  of  worship  which  prevailed  in  the  Roman 
world,"  he  wrote,  "were  all  considered  by  the  people  as 
equally  true ;  by  the  philosopher  as  equally  false ;  and  by 
the  magistrate  as  equally  useful."  "The  fashion  of  in- 
credulity was  communicated  from  the  philosopher  to 
the  man  of  pleasure  or  business,  from  the  noble  to  the 
plebeian,  and  from  the  master  to  the  menial  slave  who 
waited  at  his  table  and  who  equally  listened  to  the  freedom 
of  his  conversation."  -  Gibbon's  idea  of  the  happiest 
period  of  mankind  is  interesting  and  characteristic.  "  If," 
he  wrote,  "  a  man  were  called  to  fix  the  period  in  the  history 
of  the  world  during  which  the  condition  of  the  human 
race  v/as  most  happy  and  prosperous,  he  would,  without 
hesitation,  name  that  which  elapsed  from  the  death  of 
Domitian  to  the  accession  of  Commodus."  ^  This  period 
was  from  a.d.  96  to  180,  covering  the  reigns  of  Nerva, 
Trajan,  Hadrian,  Antoninus  Pius,  and  Marcus  Aurelius. 
Professor  Carter,  in  a  lecture  in  Rome  in  1907,  drew,  by  a 
modern  comparison,  a  characterization  of  the  first  three 
named.     When  we  were  studying  in  Germany,   he  said, 

1  Smith's  ed.,  I,  215,  371 ;  II,  230. 

2  Ibid.,  I,  165  ;    II,  205.  3  /jj^.^  j^  2I6. 


EDWARD  GIBBON  279 

we  were  accustomed  to  sum  up  the  three  emperors, 
WilHam  I,  Frederick  III,  and  WiUiam  II,  as  der  greise 
Kaiser,  der  weise  Kaiser,  und  der  reise  Kaiser.  The 
characterizations  will  fit  well  Nerva,  Trajan,  and  Hadrian. 
Gibbon  speaks  of  the  "  restless  activity  "  of  Hadrian,  whose 
life  "was  almost  a  perpetual  journey,"  and  who  during 
his  reign  visited  every  province  of  his  empire.^ 

A  casual  remark  of  Gibbon's,  "Corruption  [is]  the  most 
infallible  symptom  of  constitutional  liberty,"  -  shows  the 
sentiment  of  the  eighteenth  century.  The  generality  of 
the  history  becomes  specific  in  a  letter  to  his  father,  who 
has  given  him  hopes  of  a  seat  in  Parliament.  "  This  seat," 
so  Edward  Gibbon  wrote,  "  according  to  the  custom  of  our 
venal  country  was  to  be  bought,  and  fifteen  hundred 
pounds  were  mentioned  as  the  price  of  purchase."  ^ 

Gibbon  anticipated  Captain  Mahan.  In  speaking  of  a 
naval  battle  between  the  fleet  of  Justinian  and  that  of  the 
Goths  in  which  the  galleys  of  the  Eastern  empire  gained  a 
signal  victory,  he  wrote,  "The  Goths  affected  to  depreciate 
an  element  in  which  they  were  unskilled ;  but  their  own 
experience  confirmed  the  truth  of  a  maxim,  that  the  master 
of  the  sea  will  always  acquire  the  dominion  of  the  land."  ^ 
But  Gibbon's  anticipation  was  one  of  the  frequent  cases 
where  the  same  idea  has  occurred  to  a  number  of  men  of 
genius,  as  doubtless  Captain  Mahan  was  not  aware  of  this 
sentence  any  more  than  he  was  of  Bacon's  and  Raleigh's 
epitomes  of  the  theme  which  he  has  so  originally  and  bril- 
liantly treated.^ 

No  modern  historian  has  been  the  subject  of  so  much 
critical  comment  as  Gibbon.     I  do  not  know  how  it  will 

1  Smith's  ed.,  I,  144.  '  Letters.  I,  23. 

2  Ibid.,  Ill,  78.  *  Smith's  ed.,  V,  230. 

6  See  Mahan's  From  Sail  to  Steam,  276. 


280  MODERN  ESSAYS 

compare  in  volume  with  either  of  the  similar  examina- 
tions of  Thucydides  and  Tacitus ;  but  the  criticism  is  of 
a  different  sort.  The  only  guarantee  of  the  honesty  of 
Tacitus,  wrote  Sainte-Beuve,  is  Tacitus  himself ;  ^  and  a 
like  remark  will  apply  to  Thucydides.  But  a  fierce  light 
beats  on  Gibbon.  His  voluminous  notes  furnish  the 
critics  the  materials  on  which  he  built  his  history,  which, 
in  the  case  of  the  ancient  historians,  must  be  largely  a 
matter  of  conjecture.  With  all  the  searching  examina- 
tion of  "The  Decline  and  Fall,"  it  is  surprising  how  few 
errors  have  been  found  and,  of  the  errors  which  have  been 
noted,  how  few  are  really  important.  Guizot,  Milman, 
Dr.  Smith,  Cotter  Morison,  Bury,  and  a  number  of  lesser 
lights  have  raked  his  text  and  his  notes  with  few  momen- 
tous results.  We  have,  writes  Bury,  improved  methods 
over  Gibbon  and  "much  new  material  of  various  kinds," 
but  "  Gibbon's  historical  sense  kept  him  constantly  right 
in  deahng  with  his  sources" ;  and  "in  the  main  things  he 
is  still  our  master."  -  The  man  is  generally  reflected  in 
his  book.  That  Gibbon  has  been  weighed  and  not  found 
wanting  is  because  he  was  as  honest  and  truthful  as  any 
man  who  ever  wrote  history.  The  autobiographies  and 
letters  exhibit  to  us  a  transparent  man,  which  indeed 
some  of  the  personal  allusions  in  the  history  might  have 
foreshadowed.  "I  have  often  fluctuated  and  shall  tamely 
follow  the  Colbert  Ms.,"  he  wrote,  where  the  authenticity 
of  a  book  was  in  question.'^  In  another  case  "the  scarcity 
of  facts  and  the  uncertainty  of  dates"  opposed  his  attempt 
to  describe  the  first  invasion  of  Italy  by  Alaric.^  In  the 
beginning  of  the  famous  Chapter  XLIV  which  is  "admired 
by  jurists  as  a  brief  and  brilliant  exposition  of  the  principles 

'  Causeries  du  Lundi,  I,  153.  ^  Smith's  ed..  Ill,  14. 

^Introduction,  xlv,  1,  Ixvii.  *  Ibid.,  IV,  31. 


EDWARD   GIBBON  281 

of  Roman  law,"  ^  Gibbon  wrote,  "Attached  to  no  party, 
interested  only  for  the  truth  and  candor  of  history,  and 
directed  by  the  most  temperate  and  skillful  guides,  I  enter 
with  just  diffidence  on  the  subject  of  civil  law."  ^  In 
speaking  of  the  state  of  Britain  between  409  and  449,  he 
said,  "I  owe  it  to  myself  and  to  historic  truth  to  declare 
that  some  circumstances  in  this  paragraph  are  founded 
only  on  conjecture  and  analogy."  ^  Throughout  his  whole 
work  the  scarcity  of  materials  forces  Gibbon  to  the  fre- 
quent use  of  conjecture,  but  I  believe  that  for  the  most  part 
his  conjectures  seem  reasonable  to  the  critics.  Impressed 
with  the  correctness  of  his  account  of  the  Eastern  empire 
a  student  of  the  subject  once  told  me  that  Gibbon  certainly 
possessed  the  power  of  wise  divination. 

Gibbon's  striving  after  precision  and  accuracy  is  shown 
in  some  marginal  corrections  he  made  in  his  own  printed 
copy  of  "The  Decline  and  Fall."  On  the  .first  page  in  his 
first  printed  edition  and  as  it  now  stands,  he  said,  "To 
deduce  the  most  important  circumstances  of  its  decline 
and  fall :  a  revolution  which  will  ever  be  remembered  and 
is  still  felt  by  the  nations  of  the  earth."  For  this  the 
following  is  substituted :  "  To  prosecute  the  decline  and 
fall  of  the  empire  of  Rome  :  of  whose  language,  religions 
and  laws  the  impression  will  be  long  preserved  in  our  own 
and  the  neighboring  countries  of  Europe."  He  thus 
explains  the  change  :  "Mr.  Hume  told  me  that,  in  correct- 
ing his  history,  he  always  labored  to  reduce  superlatives 
and  soften  positives.  Have  Asia  and  Africa,  from  Japan 
to  Morocco,  any  feeling  or  memory  of  the  Roman  Em- 
pire  r 

On  page  6,  Bury's  edition,  the  text  is,  "The  praises  of 
Alexander,  transmitted  by  a  succession  of  poets  and  his- 

1  Bury,  Hi.  ^  g^itii's  ej.,  V,  258.  ^  Ibid.,  lY,  132  n. 


282  MODERN  ESSAYS 

torians,  had  kindled  a  dangerous  emulation  in  the  mind  of 
Trajan."  We  can  imagine  that  Gibbon  reflected,  What 
e\'idence  have  I  that  Trajan  had  read  these  poets  and 
historians?  Therefore  he  made  this  change:  "Late 
generations  and  far  distant  climates  may  impute  their 
calamities  to  the  immortal  author  of  the  Iliad.  The 
spirit  of  Alexander  was  inflamed  by  the  praises  of  Achilles  ; 
and  succeeding  heroes  have  been  ambitious  to  tread  in 
the  footsteps  of  Alexander.  Like  him,  the  Emperor 
Trajan  aspired  to  the  conquest  of  the  East."  ^ 

The  "advertisement"  to  the  first  octavo  edition  pub- 
lished in  1783  is  an  instance  of  Gibbon's  truthfulness.  He 
wrote,  "Some  alterations  and  improvements  had  pre- 
sented themselves  to  my  mind,  but  I  was  unwilling  to  in- 
jure or  ofl^end  the  purchasers  of  the  preceding  editions." 
Then  he  seems  to  reflect  that  this  is  not  quite  the  whole 
truth,  and  adds,  "Perhaps  I  may  stand  excused  if,  amidst 
the  avocations  of  a  busy  winter,  I  have  preferred  the 
pleasures  of  composition  and  study  to  the  minute  diligence 
of  revising  a  former  publication."  ^ 

The  severest  criticism  that  Gibbon  has  received  is  on 
his  famous  chapters  XV  and  XVI  which  conclude  his 
first  volume  in  the  original  quarto  edition  of  1776.  We 
may  disregard  the  flood  of  contemporary  criticism  from 
certain  people  who  were  excited  by  what  they  deemed  an 
attack  on  the  Christian  religion.  Dean  Milman,  who 
objected  seriously  to  much  in  these  chapters,  consulted 
these  various  answers  to  Gibbon  on  the  first  appearance  of 
his  work  with,  according  to  his  own  confession,  little  profit.' 
"Against  his  celebrated  fifteenth  and  sixteenth  chapters," 
wrote  Buckle,  "all  the  devices  of  controversy  have  been 

1  Bury's  ed.,  xxxv,  xxxvi.  2  Smith's  ed.,  I,  xxi. 

^  Ibid.,  I,  xvii. 


EDWARD   GIBBON  283 

exhausted ;  but  the  only  result  has  been,  that  while  the 
fame  of  the  historian  is  untarnished,  the  attacks  of  his 
enemies  are  falling  into  complete  oblivion.  The  work  of 
Gibbon  remains ;  but  who  is  there  who  feels  any  interest 
in  what  was  written  against  liim?"^  During  the  last 
generation,  however,  criticism  has  taken  another  form 
and  scientific  men  now  do  not  exactly  share  Buckle's 
gleeful  opinion.  Both  Bury  and  Cotter  Morison  state  or 
imply  that  well-grounded  exceptions  may  be  taken  to 
Gibbon's  treatment  of  the  early  Christian  church.  He 
ignored  some  facts ;  his  combination  of  others,  his  in- 
ferences, his  opinions  are  not  fair  and  unprejudiced.  A 
further  grave  objection  may  be  made  to  the  tone  of  these 
two  chapters  :  sarcasm  pervades  them  and  the  Gibbon 
sneer  has  become  an  apt  characterization. 

Francis  Parkman  admitted  that  he  was  a  reverent  ag- 
nostic, and  if  Gibbon  had  been  a  reverent  free-thinker, 
these  two  chapters  would  have  been  far  different  in  tone. 
Lecky  regarded  the  Christian  church  as  a  great  institu- 
tion worthy  of  reverence  and  respect  although  he  stated 
the  central  thesis  of  Gibbon  with  emphasis  just  as  great. 
Of  the  conversion  of  the  Roman  Empire  to  Christianity, 
Lecky  wrote,  "it  may  be  boldly  asserted  that  the  assump- 
tion of  a  moral  or  intellectual  miracle  is  utterly  gratuitous. 
Never  before  was  a  religious  transformation  so  manifestly 
inevitable."  ^  Gibbon's  sneering  tone  was  a  characteristic 
of  his  time.  There  existed  during  the  latter  part  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  wrote  Sir  James  Mackintosh,  "an 
unphilosophical  and  indeed  fanatical  animosity  against 
Christianity."  But  Gibbon's  private  defense  is  entitled 
to  consideration  as  placing  him  in  a  better  light.  "The 
primitive  church,  which  I  have  treated  with  some  free- 

1  History  of  Civilization,  II,  308  n.  ^  Morals,  I,  419. 


284  MODERN  ESSAYS 

dom,"  he  wrote  to  Lord  Sheffield  in  1791,  "was  itself  at 
that  time  an  innovation,  and  I  was  attached  to  the  old 
Pagan  establishment."  ^  "Had  I  believed,"  he  said  in  his 
Autobiography,  "that  the  majority  of  English  readers 
were  so  fondly  attached  to  the  name  and  shadow  of  Chris- 
tianity, had  I  foreseen  that  the  pious,  the  timid,  and  the 
prudent  would  feel,  or  affect  to  feel,  with  such  exquisite 
sensibility,  I  might  perhaps  have  softened  the  two  in- 
vidious chapters."  - 

On  the  other  hand  Gibbon's  treatment  of  Julian  the 
Apostate  is  in  accordance  with  the  best  modern  standard. 
It  might  have  been  supposed  that  a  quasi-Pagan,  as  he 
avowed  himself,  would  have  emphasized  Julian's  virtues 
and  ignored  his  weaknesses  as  did  Voltaire,  who  invested 
him  with  all  the  good  qualities  of  Trajan,  Cato,  and 
Julius  Cffisar,  without  their  defects.^  Robertson  indeed 
feared  that  he  might  fail  in  this  part  of  the  history ;  "*  but 
Gibbon  weighed  Julian  in  the  balance,  duly  estimating 
his  strength  and  his  weakness,  with  the  result  that  he  has 
given  a  clear  and  just  account  in  his  best  and  most  dignified 
style.^ 

Gibbon's  treatment  of  Theodora,  the  wife  of  Justinian, 
is  certainly  open  to  objection.  Without  proper  sifting 
and  a  reasonable  skepticism,  he  has  incorporated  into  his 
narrative  the  questionable  account  with  all  its  salacious 
details  which  Procopius  gives  in  his  Secret  History, 
Gibbon's  love  of  a  scandalous  tale  getting  the  better  of  his 
historical  criticism.  He  has  not  neglected  to  urge  a 
defense.  "I  am  justified,"  he  wrote,  "in  painting  the 
manners  of  the  times;  the  vices  of  Theodora  form  an 
essential  feature  in  the  reign  and  character  of  Justinian. 

1  Letters,  II,  237.         2  Autobiography,  31G.         ^  Cotter  Morison,  118. 
*  Saiutc-Beuve,  458.  »  Cotter  Morison,  120. 


EDWARD   GIBBON  285 

.  .  .  My  English  text  is  chaste,  and  all  liceatious  pas- 
sages are  left  in  the  obscurity  of  a  learned  language."  ^ 
This  explanation  satisfies  neither  Cotter  Morison  nor  Bury, 
nor  would  it  hold  for  a  moment  as  a  justification  of  a  his- 
torian of  our  own  day.  Gibbon  is  really  so  scientific, 
so  much  like  a  late  nineteenth-century  man,  that  we  do 
right  to  subject  him  to  our  present-day  rigid  tests. 

There  has  been  much  discussion  about  Gibbon's  style, 
which  we  all  know  is  pompous  and  Latinized.  On  a 
long  reading  his  rounded  and  sonorous  periods  become 
wearisome,  and  one  wishes  that  occasionally  a  sentence 
would  terminate  with  a  small  word,  even  a  preposition. 
One  feels  as  did  Dickens  after  walking  for  an  hour  or  two 
about  the  handsome  but  " distractingly  regular"  city  of 
Philadelphia.  "I  felt,"  he  wrote,  "that  I  would  have 
given  the  world  for  a  crooked  street."  -  Despite  the  pom- 
posity, Gibbon's  style  is  correct,  and  the  exact  use  of  words 
is  a  marvel.  It  is  rare,  I  think,  that  any  substitution  or 
change  of  words  will  improve  upon  the  precision  of  the 
text.  His  compression  and  selection  of  salient  points 
are  remarkable.  Amid  some  commonplace  philosophy  he 
frequently  rises  to  a  generalization  as  brilliant  as  it  is 
truthful.  Then,  too,  one  is  impressed  with  the  dignity  of 
history ;  one  feels  that  Gibbon  looked  upon  his  work  as 
very  serious,  and  thought  with  Thucydides,  "My  history 
is  an  everlasting  possession,  not  a  prize  composition 
which  is  heard  and  forgotten." 

To  a  writer  of  history  few  things  are  more  interesting 
than  a  great  historian's  autobiographical  remarks  which 
relate  to  the  composition  of  his  work.  "Had  I  been  more 
indigent  or  more  wealthy,"  wrote  Gibbon  in  his  Auto- 
biography, "I  should  not  have  possessed  the  leisure  or 

1  Autobiography,  337  n.  ^  American  Notes,  Chap.  VII. 


28G  MODERN  ESSAYS 

the  perseverance  to  prepare  and  execute  my  voluminous 
history."  '  "Notwithstanding  the  hurry  of  business  and 
pleasure,"  he  wrote  from  London  in  1778,  "I  steal  some 
moments  for  the  Roman  Emi>ire."  ^  Between  the  writing 
of  tlie  first  tliree  and  the  last  three  volumes,  he  took  a 
rest  of  "near  a  twelvemonth"  and  gave  expression  to  a 
thought  which  may  be  echoed  Ijy  every  studious  writer, 
"Yet  in  the  luxury  of  freedom,  I  Ijcgau  to  wish  for  the 
daily  task,  the  active  pursuit  \\  lii<li  gave  a  value  to  every 
book  and  an  c)ljjcct  to  every  iiKjuiry." ''  Every  one 
who  has  written  a  historical  book  will  sympathize  with 
the  following  expression  of  personal  experience  as  he  ap- 
proached the  completion  of  "The  Decline  and  Fall": 
"Let  nf)  man  wlio  bnilds  a  house  or  writes  a  book  presume 
to  say  wlu^n  he  will  have  hnished.  When  he  imagines 
that  he  is  drawing  near  to  his  journey's  end,  Alps  rise  on 
Alps,  and  he  (•(julinually  finds  something  to  add  and  some- 
thing trj  correct."  '' 

I'hiin  tnithl'ul  tales  are  Gibbon's  autobiographies.  The 
.style  is  thai  of  the  history,  and  he  writes  of  himself  as 
frankly  as  he  does  of  any  of  his  historical  characters.  His 
failings  —  what  he  has  somewhere  termed  "the  amiable 
weaknesses  f)f  Imm.'in  natnn;"  —  are  disclosed  with  the 
openness  (A  a  ]''rcnchman.  All  but  one  of  the  ten  years 
between  178.'}  anfl  171)3,  })etwcen  the  ages  of  40  and  56,  he 
passed  ;it  L;iiis;uiri(;.  There  he  (•ornplcted  "The  Decline 
and  Fall,"  ;iii<l  of  lh;it  [H'riod  he  spent  froiri  August,  1787, 
to  .July,  178H,  in  luigl.'ind  to  look  aflcr  I  he  piil)lication 
of  th(;  last  thnre  volumes.  Ilis  life  in  Lausanne  was  one  of 
study,  writing,  and  agreeable  society,  of  whicli  his  corre- 
s[)oridenc(;  with  his  ICnglish  fri<'nds  gives  an  animated  ac- 

'  p.  l.l.'i.  ■'  Aiil<»l>i<)Krai)liy,  .'525. 

«  LoUcrs,  I,  :y.'A.  "  LfU(;iH,  II,  Hii. 


EDWARD   CilBBOX  '■ZS7 

count.  Tlio  two  lliinuN  one  is  inosl  liiiprossocl  wifli  ;iro 
his  \o\'c  for  hooks  ;iiul  his  lo\e  t'or  Madeira.  "Thouuli  a 
lovor  of  society."  ho  wrol(\  "my  hhrary  is  the  room  to 
wliieh  I  am  most  attachoch"  '  While  ijettim;'  settUnl  at 
Luusatuie.  he  t'lunphiius  that  his  boxes  of  boiW-cs  "loiter 
oil  the  road."  -  .Viul  then  he  harjis  on  another  strint;'. 
"Good  INLuleira."  he  writes,  "is  now  heeome  essential 
to  my  health  and  repiilatiim ;"  •'  yet  a^ain,  "If  I  do  not 
reeei\e  a  snpply  of  Madeira  in  the  I'ourse  of  the  summer, 
I  shall  he  in  ureal  shame  and  distrivss."  '  His  ginnl 
friend  in  I'-nj^laiul.  Iah-cI  Shellield.  regarded  his  prayer 
and  sent  him  a  houshead  of  "best  old  Madeira"  and  a 
tiereo,  ei)ntaininj;'  six  do/,(Mi  bottles  of  "finest  Malmsey," 
and  at  the  same  time  wrote:  "Von  will  remember  that  a 
hogshead  is  on  his  traxels  through  tiie  torrid  zone  for 
yi»n.  .  .  .  Ni>  wine  is  meliorated  to  a  greater  degree  by 
keeping  than  iNladeira,  anil  yon  latterly  ajjpeared  so 
rax'enons  for  it,  that  1  nnist  ecnu'iMVt^  yon  wish  to  have 
a  sUx'k."  ■•  Ciibbon's  dt^dtion  to  Madeira  bore  its  penalty. 
At  the  ago  of  forty-eight  he  siMit  this  aeeount  to  his  sli^p- 
mother:  "I  was  in  hopt^s  that  my  t>ld  b^.nemy  the  (uMit 
had  given  over  tlu^  altai-k,  but  the  N'illain.  with  his  ally 
the  winter,  eonvint'ed  luc  oi  my  (M-ror,  and  abi)ut  the  latter 
cud  of  March  1  l\)und  mysi>lf  a  prisoner  in  my  library  and 
my  groat  chair.  I  attempted  twice  to  rise,  he*  twice 
knocked  me  down  again  and  ki>i)t  poss(\ssion  of  both  my 
feet  and  knees  long«M'  (I  nnisl  eon fivss)  than  \\c  e\'er  had  done 
before."  "'  I\ager  to  finish  his  history,  he  lauuMited  that  his 
"Umg  gout  "  losi  him  "  I  linHMUoiilhs  in  I  he  s[)ring."  Thus 
JUS  you  go  through  his  eorri\spondcnce,  you  find  that  orders 
for  Mad<Mra  and  attacks  of  gimt  alliMMiate  with  regularity, 

'  l.otlors.  II.  1:50.  -  //././.,  11.  S!).  •'  //-(•,/,.  II.  'ill. 

*  Ibid.,  II,  ill.  "  lhi,l.,  11,  'i:ii.  « //)/(/.,  II,  HI). 


288  MODERN  ESSAYS 

Gibl)on  apparently  did  not  connect  the  two  as  cause  and 
effect,  as  in  his  autobiography  he  charged  his  malady  to  his 
service  in  the  Hampshire  militia,  when  "the  daily  practice 
of  hard  and  even  excessive  drinking"  had  sown  in  his 
constitution  "the  seeds  of  the  gout."  ^ 

Gibbon  has  never  been  a  favorite  with  women,  owing 
largely  to  his  account  of  his  early  love  affair.  While  at 
Lausanne,  he  had  heard  much  of  "the  wit  and  beauty 
and  erudition  of  Mademoiselle  Curchod"  and  when  he 
first  met  her,  he  had  reached  the  age  of  twenty.  "  I  saw 
and  loved,"  he  wrote.  "I  found  her  learned  without 
pedantry,  Uvely  in  conversation,  pure  in  sentiment,  and 
elegant  in  manners.  .  .  .  She  Hstened  to  the  voice  of 
truth  and  passion.  ...  At  Lausanne  I  indulged  my 
dream  of  felicity";  and  indeed  he  appeared  to  be  an 
ardent  lover.  "He  was  seen,"  said  a  contemporary, 
"stopping  country  people  near  Lausanne  and  demanding 
at  the  point  of  a  naked  dagger  whether  a  more  adorable 
creature  existed  than  Suzanne  Curchod."  ^  On  his  return 
to  England,  however,  he  soon  discovered  that  his  father 
would  not  hear  of  this  alliance,  and  he  thus  related  the 
sequence  :  "After  a  painful  struggle,  I  yielded  to  my  fate. 
...  I  sighed  as  a  lover,  I  obeyed  as  a  son."  ^  From 
England  he  wrote  to  Mademoiselle  Curchod  breaking  off 
the  engagement.  Perhaps  it  is  because  of  feminine  criti- 
cism that  Cotter  Morison  indulges  in  an  elaborate  defense 
of  Gibbon,  which  indeed  hardly  seems  necessary.  Rous- 
seau, who  was  privy  to  the  love  affair,  said  that  "  Gibbon 
was  too  cold-blooded  a  young  man  for  his  taste  or 
for  Mademoiselle  Curchod's  happiness."  ^  Mademoiselle 
Curchod  a  few  years  later  married  Necker,  a  rich  Paris 

1  Letters,  II,  189.  ^  ibij.,  I,  40. 

3  Autobiography,  pp.  151,  239.  ^  Letters,  I,  41. 


EDWARD   GIBBON  289 

banker,  who  under  Louis  XVI  held  the  office  of  director- 
general  of  the  finances.  She  was  the  mother  of  Madame 
de  Stael,  was  a  leader  of  the  literary  society  in  Paris  and, 
despite  the  troublous  times,  must  have  led  a  happy  life. 
One  delightful  aspect  of  the  story  is  the  warm  friendship 
that  existed  between  Madame  Necker  and  Edward  Gib- 
bon. This  began  less  than  a  year  after  her  marriage. 
"The  Curchod  (Madame  Necker)  I  saw  at  Paris,"  he 
wrote  to  his  friend  Holroyd.  "She  was  very  fond  of  me 
and  the  husband  particularly  civil.  Could  they  insult 
me  more  cruelly?  Ask  me  every  evening  to  supper; 
go  to  bed,  and  leave  me  alone  with  his  wife  —  what  an 
impertinent  security !"  ^ 

If  women  read  the  Correspondence  as  they  do  the  Auto- 
biography, I  think  that  their  aversion  to  the  great  historian 
would  be  increased  by  these  confiding  words  to  his  step- 
mother, written  when  he  was  forty-nine :  "  The  habits  of 
female  conversation  have  sometimes  tempted  me  to  ac- 
quire the  piece  of  furniture,  a  wife,  and  could  I  unite  in  a 
single  Woman  the  virtues  and  accomplishments  of  half  a 
dozen  of  my  acquaintance,  I  would  instantly  pay  my  ad- 
dresses to  the  Constellation."  ^ 

I  have  always  been  impressed  with  Gibbon's  pride  at 
being  the  author  of  "six  volumes  in  quartos";  but  as 
nearly  all  histories  now  are  published  in  octavo,  I  had  not 
a  distinct  idea  of  the  appearance  of  a  quarto  volume  until 
the  preparation  of  this  essay  led  me  to  look  at  different 

1  Ibid.,  I,  81.  In  1790  Madame  de  Stael,  then  at  Coppet,  wrote: 
"Nous  possedons  dans  ce  chateau  M.  Gibbon,  I'ancien  amoreux  de  ma 
mere,  celui  qui  voulait  TepGUser.  Quand  je  le  vois,  je  me  demande  si 
je  serais  nee  de  son  union  avee  ma  mere  :  je  me  reponds  que  non  et  qu'il 
suffisait  de  mon  pere  seul  pour  que  je  vinsse  au  monde."  —  Hill's  ed., 
107,  n.  2. 

2  Letters,  II,  143. 

u 


290  MODERN  ESSAYS 

editions  of  Gibbon  in  the  Boston  Athenaeum.  There  I 
found  the  quartos,  the  first  volume  of  which  is  the  third 
edition,  pubhshed  in  1777  [it  will  be  remembered  that  the 
original  publication  of  the  first  volume  was  in  February, 
177G].  The  volume  is  11|  inches  long  by  9  inches  wide 
and  is  much  heavier  than  our  very  heavy  octavo  volumes. 
With  this  volume  in  my  hand  I  could  appreciate  the  re- 
mark of  the  Duke  of  Gloucester  when  Gibbon  brought 
him  the  second  volume  of  the  "  Decline  and  Fall."  Laying 
the  quarto  on  the  table  he  said,  "Another  d — d  thick 
square  book  !  Always  scribble,  scribble,  scribble  !  Eh ! 
Mr.  Gibbon  .5  "1 

During  my  researches  at  the  Athenaeum,  I  found  an 
octavo  edition,  the  first  volume  of  which  was  published 
in  1791,  and  on  the  cover  was  written,  "Given  to  the 
Athenaeum  by  Charles  Cabot.  Received  December  10, 
1807."  This  was  the  year  of  the  foundation  of  the 
Athenaeum.  On  the  c^uarto  of  1777  there  was  no  indica- 
tion, but  the  scholarly  cataloguer  informed  me  that  it  was 
probably  also  received  in  1807.  Three  later  editions 
than  these  two  are  in  this  library,  the  last  of  which  is 
Bury's  of  1900  to  which  I  have  constantly  referred.  Medi- 
tating in  the  quiet  alcove,  with  the  two  early  editions  of 
Gibbon  before  me,  I  found  an  answer  to  the  comment  of 
H.  G.  Wells  in  his  book  "The  Future  in  America"  which  I 
confess  had  somewhat  irritated  me.  Thus  wrote  Wells : 
"Frankly  I  grieve  over  Boston  as  a  great  waste  of  leisure 
and  energy,  as  a  frittering  away  of  moral  and  intellectual 
possibilities.  We  give  too  much  to  the  past.  .  .  .  We 
are  obsessed  by  the  scholastic  prestige  of  mere  knowledge 
and  genteel  remoteness."  ^  Pondering  this  iconoclastic 
utterance,  how  delightful  it  is  to  light  upon  evidence  in 
1  Birkbeck  Hill's  ed.,  127.  2  p.  235. 


EDWARD   GIBBON  291 

the  way  of  well-worn  volumes  that,  since  1807,  men  and 
women  here  have  been  carefully  reading  Gibbon,  who,  as 
Dean  Milman  said,  "has  bridged  the  abyss  between 
ancient  and  modern  times  and  connected  together  the 
two  worlds  of  history."  ^  A  knowledge  of  "The  Decline 
and  Fall"  is  a  basis  for  the  study  of  all  other  history; 
it  is  a  mental  discipline,  and  a  training  for  the  problems 
of  modern  life.  These  Athenaeum  readers  did  not  waste 
their  leisure,  did  not  give  too  much  to  the  past.  They 
were  supremely  right  to  take  account  of  the  scholastic 
prestige  of  Gibbon,  and  to  endeavor  to  make  part  of 
their  mental  fiber  this  greatest  history  of  modern  times. 
I  will  close  with  a  quotation  from  the  Autobiography 
which  in  its  sincerity  and  absolute  freedom  from  literary 
cant  will  be  cherished  by  all  whose  desire  is  to  behold  "the 
bright  countenance  of  truth  in  the  quiet  and  still  air  of 
delightful  studies."  "I  have  drawn  a  high  prize  in  the 
lottery  of  life,"  wrote  Gibbon.  "I  am  disgusted  with  the 
affectation  of  men  of  letters,  who  complain  that  they  have 
renounced  a  substance  for  a  shadow  and  that  their  fame 
affords  a  poor  compensation  for  envy,  censure,  and  per- 
secution. My  own  experience  at  least  has  taught  me  a 
very  different  lesson :  twenty  happy  years  have  been  ani- 
mated by  the  labor  of  my  history;  and  its  success  has 
given  me  a  name,  a  rank,  a  character  in  the  world,  to  which 
I  should  not  otherwise  have  been  entitled.  .  .  .  D'Alem- 
bert  relates  that  as  he  was  walking  in  the  gardens  of  Sans- 
souci  with  the  King  of  Prussia,  Frederick  said  to  him, 
'  Do  you  see  that  old  woman,  a  poor  weeder,  asleep  on  that 
sunny  bank  ?  She  is  probably  a  more  happy  Being  than 
either  of  us.' "  Now  the  comment  of  Gibbon  :  "The  King 
and  the  Philosopher  may  speak  for  themselves ;  for  my 
part  I  do  not  envy  the  old  woman."  ^ 

1  Smith's  ed.,  I,  vii.  ^  Autobiography,  343,  346. 


THE   MILDNESS  OF  THE   YELLOW  PRESS  ^ 

BY 

Gilbert  K.  Chesterton 

Obviously  the  danger  in  the  catalogue  form  lies  in  the  even  distribution 
of  emphasis.  Since  the  reader  may  at  any  moment  lay  the  essay  aside 
with  the  thought  complete  up  to  that  point,  it  often  happens  that  he 
does  so  before  finishing  the  essay.  Therefore  an  author  is  apt  to  try  to 
conceal  the  catalogue.  This  is  done  most  successfully  by  Mr.  Chesterton 
in  his  attack  upon  the  "yellow"  type  of  journalism.  He  wishes  to  tell 
us  that  in  his  opinion  "yellow"  journalism  is  mediocre,  timid,  infantile, 
and  unrepresentative.  To  attract  attention,  however,  he  begins  with 
the  paradox  that  such  journalism  is  not  sufficiently  sensational.  This 
thought,  when  developed,  leads  naturally  to  a  discussion  of  other  weak- 
nesses. The  whole  is  flooded  by  concrete  illustration.  As  such  illustra- 
tion is  chosen  with  a  desire  to  make  the  object  of  the  attack  ridiculous, 
and  as  it  serves  as  almost  the  only  support  for  statements  made  au- 
thoritatively, the  essay  is  clever  rather  than  profound.  Yet  it  is  so 
clever  that  the  reader,  without  thinking,  tends  to  accept  his  conclusion. 

There  is  a  great  deal  of  protest  made  from  one  quarter 
or  another  nowadays  against  the  influence  of  that  new 
journalism  which  is  associated  with  the  names  of  Sir 
Alfred  Harmsworth  and  Mr.  Pearson.  But  almost  every- 
body who  attacks  it  attacks  on  the  ground  that  it  is  very 
sensational,  very  violent  and  vulgar  and  startling.  I  am 
speaking  in  no  affected  contrariety,  but  in  the  simplicity 
of  a  genuine  personal  impression,  when  I  say  that  this 
journalism  offends  as  being  not   sensational  or    violent 

'  From  "Heretics,"  by  permission  of  the  publishers,  John  Lane  Co. 

292 


THE  MILDNESS  OF  THE  YELLOW  PRESS      293 

enough.  The  real  vice  is  not  that  it  is  starthng,  but  that 
it  is  quite  insupportably  tame.  The  whole  object  is  to 
keep  carefully  along  a  certain  level  of  the  expected  and  the 
commonplace ;  it  may  be  low,  but  it  must  take  care  also 
to  be  flat.  Never  by  any  chance  in  it  is  there  any  of  that 
real  plebeian  pungency  wliich  can  be  heard  from  the  or- 
dinary cabman  in  the  ordinary  street.  We  have  heard  of 
a  certain  standard  of  decorum  which  demands  that  things 
should  be  funny  without  being  vulgar,  but  the  standard  of 
this  decorum  demands  that  if  things  are  vulgar  they  shall 
be  vulgar  without  being  funny.  This  journalism  does  not 
merely  fail  to  exaggerate  life  —  it  positively  underrates 
it ;  and  it  has  to  do  so  because  it  is  intended  for  the  faint 
and  languid  recreation  of  men  whom  the  fierceness  of 
modern  life  has  fatigued.  This  press  is  not  the  yellow 
press  at  all ;  it  is  the  drab  press.  Sir  Alfred  Harmsworth 
must  not  address  to  the  tired  clerk  any  observation  more 
witty  than  the  tired  clerk  might  be  able  to  address  to  Sir 
Alfred  Harmsworth.  It  must  not  expose  anybody  (any- 
body who  is  powerful,  that  is),  it  must  not  offend  anybody, 
it  must  not  even  please  anybody,  too  much.  A  general 
vague  idea  that  in  spite  of  all  this,  our  yellow  press  is 
sensational,  arises  from  such  external  accidents  as  large 
type  or  lurid  headlines.  It  is  quite  true  that  these  editors 
print  everything  they  possibly  can  in  large  capital  letters. 
But  they  do  this,  not  because  it  is  startling,  but  because 
it  is  soothing.  To  people  wholly  weary  or  partly  drunk  in 
a  dimly  lighted  train,  it  is  a  simplification  and  a  comfort 
to  have  things  presented  in  this  vast  and  obvious  manner. 
The  editors  use  this  gigantic  alphabet  in  dealing  with  their 
readers,  for  exactly  the  same  reason  that  parents  and  gov- 
ernesses use  a  similar  gigantic  alphabet  in  teaching  children 
to  spell.     The  nursery  authorities  do  not  use  an  A  as  big  as 


294  MODERN  ESSxVYS 

a  horseshoe  in  order  to  make  the  child  jump ;  on  the  con- 
trary, they  use  it  to  put  the  child  at  his  ease,  to  make 
things  smoother  and  more  evident.  Of  the  same  character 
is  the  dim  and  quiet  dame  school  which  Sir  Alfred  Harms- 
worth  and  Mr.  Pearson  keep.  All  their  sentiments  are 
spelling-book  sentiments  —  that  is  to  say,  they  are  senti- 
ments with  which  the  pupil  is  already  respectfully  familiar. 
All  their  wildest  posters  are  leaves  torn  from  a  copy-book. 
Of  real  sensational  journalism,  as  it  exists  in  France,  in 
Ireland,  and  in  America,  we  have  no  trace  in  this  country. 
When  a  journalist  in  Ireland  wishes  to  create  a  thrill,  he 
creates  a  thrill  worth  talking  about.  He  denounces  a 
leading  Irish  member  for  corruption,  or  he  charges  the 
whole  police  system  with  a  wicked  and  definite  conspiracy. 
When  a  French  journalist  desires  a  frisson  there  is  a  fris- 
son; he  discovers,  let  us  say,  that  the  President  of  the 
Republic  has  murdered  three  wives.  Our  yellow  jour- 
nalists invent  quite  as  unscrupulously  as  this  ;  their  moral 
condition  is,  as  regards  careful  veracity,  about  the  same. 
But  it  is  their  mental  calibre  which  happens  to  be  such 
that  they  can  only  invent  calm  and  even  reassuring  things. 
The  fictitious  version  of  the  massacre  of  the  envoys  of 
Pekin  was  mendacious,  but  it  was  not  interesting,  except 
to  those  who  had  private  reasons  for  terror  or  sorrow.  It 
was  not  connected  with  any  bold  and  suggestive  view  of 
the  Chinese  situation.  It  revealed  only  a  vague  idea  that 
nothing  could  be  impressive  except  a  great  deal  of  blood. 
Real  sensationalism,  of  which  I  happen  to  be  very  fond, 
may  be  either  moral  or  immoral.  But  even  when  it  is 
most  immoral,  it  requires  moral  courage.  For  it  is  one 
of  the  most  dangerous  things  on  earth  genuinely  to  sur- 
prise anybody.  If  you  make  any  sentient  creature  jump, 
you  render  it  by  no  means  improbable  that  it  will  jump  on 


THE  MILDNESS  OF  THE  YELLOW  PRESS     295 

you.  But  the  leaders  of  this  movement  have  no  moral 
courage  or  immoral  courage ;  their  whole  method  con- 
sists in  saying,  with  large  and  elaborate  emphasis,  the 
things  which  everybody  else  says  casually,  and  without 
remembering  what  they  have  said.  When  they  brace 
themselves  up  to  attack  anything,  they  never  reach  the 
point  of  attacking  anything  which  is  large  and  real,  and 
would  resound  with  the  shock.  They  do  not  attack  the 
army  as  men  do  in  France,  or  the  judges  as  men  do  in 
Ireland,  or  the  democracy  itself  as  men  did  in  England  a 
hundred  years  ago.  They  attack  something  like  the  War 
Office  —  something,  that  is,  which  everybody  attacks  and 
nobody  bothers  to  defend,  something  which  is  an  old  joke 
in  fourth-rate  comic  papers.  Just  as  a  man  shows  he  has 
a  weak  voice  by  straining  it  to  shout,  so  they  show  the 
hopelessly  unsensational  nature  of  their  minds  when  they 
really  try  to  be  sensational.  With  the  whole  world  full 
of  big  and  dubious  institutions,  with  the  whole  wickedness 
of  civilization  staring  them  in  the  face,  their  idea  of  being 
bold  and  bright  is  to  attack  the  War  Office.  They  might 
as  well  start  a  campaign  against  the  weather,  or  form  a 
secret  society  in  order  to  make  jokes  about  mothers-in-law. 
Nor  is  it  only  from  the  point  of  view  of  particular  amateurs 
of  the  sensational  such  as  myself,  that  it  is  permissible  to 
say,  in  the  words  of  Cowper's  Alexander  Selkirk,  that 
"their  tameness  is  shocking  to  me."  The  whole  modern 
world  is  pining  for  a  genuinely  sensational  journalism. 
This  has  been  discovered  by  that  very  able  and  honest 
journalist,  Mr.  Blatchford,  who  started  his  campaign 
against  Christianity,  warned  on  all  sides,  I  believe,  that 
it  would  ruin  his  paper,  but  who  continued  from  an  hon- 
ourable sense  of  intellectual  responsibility.  He  dis- 
covered, however,  that  while  he  had  undoubtedly  shocked 


296  MODERN  ESSAYS 

his  readers,  he  had  also  greatly  advanced  his  newspaper. 
It  was  bought  —  first,  by  all  the  people  who  agreed  with 
hira  and  wanted  to  read  it ;  and  secondly,  by  all  the  people 
who  disagreed  with  him,  and  wanted  to  write  him  letters. 
Those  letters  were  voluminous  (I  helped,  I  am  glad  to  say, 
to  swell  their  volume),  and  they  were  generally  inserted  with 
a  generous  fulness.  Thus  was  accidentally  discovered  (like 
the  steam  engine)  the  great  journalistic  maxim  —  that  if 
an  editor  can  only  make  people  angry  enough,  they  will 
write  half  his  newspaper  for  him  for  nothing. 

Some  hold  that  such  papers  as  these  are  scarcely  the 
proper  objects  of  so  serious  a  consideration ;  but  that 
can  scarcely  be  maintained  from  a  political  or  ethical 
point  of  view.  In  this  problem  of  the  mildness  and  tame- 
ness  of  the  Harmsworth  mind  there  is  mirrored  the  out- 
lines of  a  much  larger  problem  which  is  akin  to  it. 

The  Harmsworthian  journalist  begins  with  a  worship  of 
success  and  violence,  and  ends  in  sheer  timidity  and 
mediocrity.  But  he  is  not  alone  in  this,  nor  does  he  come 
by  this  fate  merely  because  he  happens  personally  to  be 
stupid.  Every  man,  however  brave,  who  begins  by  wor- 
shipping violence,  must  end  in  mere  timidity.  Every 
man,  however  wise,  who  begins  by  worshipping  success, 
must  end  in  mere  mediocrity.  This  strange  and  para- 
doxical fate  is  involved,  not  in  the  individual,  but  in  the 
philosophy,  in  the  point  of  view.  It  is  not  the  folly  of 
the  man  which  brings  about  this  necessary  fall ;  it  is  his 
wisdom.  The  worship  of  success  is  the  only  one  out  of 
all  possible  worships  of  which  this  is  true,  that  its  followers 
are  foredoomed  to  become  slaves  and  cowards.  A  man 
may  be  a  hero  for  the  sake  of  Mrs.  Gallup 's  ciphers  or  for 
the  sake  of  human  sacrifice,  but  not  for  the  sake  of  success. 
For  obviously  a  man  may  choose  to  fail  because  he  loves 


THE  MILDNESS  OF  THE   YELLOW  PRESS      297 

Mrs.  Gallup  or  human  sacrifice ;  but  he  cannot  choose  to 
fail  because  he  loves  success.  When  the  test  of  triumph 
is  men's  test  of  everything,  they  never  endure  long  enough 
to  triumph  at  all.  As  long  as  matters  are  really  hopeful, 
hope  is  a  mere  flattery  or  platitude  ;  it  is  only  when  every- 
thing is  hopeless  that  hope  begins  to  be  a  strength  at  all. 
Like  all  the  Christian  virtues,  it  is  as  unreasonable  as  it 
is  indispensable. 

It  was  through  this  fatal  paradox  in  the  nature  of  things 
that  all  these  modern  adventurers  come  at  last  to  a  sort 
of  tedium  and  acquiescence.  They  desired  strength  ;  and 
to  them  to  desire  strength  was  to  admire  strength ;  to 
admire  strength  was  simply  to  admire  the  statu  quo. 
They  thought  that  he  who  wished  to  be  strong  ought  to 
respect  the  strong.  They  did  not  realize  the  obvious 
verity  that  he  who  wishes  to  be  strong  must  despise  the 
strong.  They  sought  to  be  everything,  to  have  the  whole 
force  of  the  cosmos  behind  them,  to  have  an  energy  that 
would  drive  the  stars.  But  they  did  not  realize  the  two 
great  facts  —  first,  that  in  the  attempt  to  be  everything 
the  first  and  most  difficult  step  is  to  be  something ;  second, 
that  the  moment  a  man  is  something,  he  is  essentially 
defying  everything.  The  lower  animals,  say  the  men  of 
science,  fought  their  way  up  with  a  blind  selfishness.  If 
this  be  so,  the  only  real  moral  of  it  is  that  our  unselfish- 
ness, if  it  is  to  triumph,  must  be  equally  blind.  The 
mammoth  did  not  put  his  head  on  one  side  and  wonder 
whether  mammoths  were  a  little  out  of  date.  Mammoths 
were  at  least  as  much  up  to  date  as  that  individual  mam- 
moth could  make  them.  The  greal  elk  did  not  say, 
"Cloven  hoofs  are  very  much  worn  now."  He  polished 
his  own  weapons  for  his  own  use.  But  in  the  reasoning 
animal  there  has  arisen  a  more  horrible  danger,  that  he 


298  MODERN  ESSAYS 

may  fail  through  perceiving  his  own  failure.  When  mod- 
ern sociologists  talk  of  the  necessity  of  accommodating  one's 
self  to  the  trend  of  the  time,  they  forget  that  the  trend 
of  the  time  at  its  best  consists  entirely  of  people  who  will 
not  accommodate  themselves  to  anything.  At  its  worst  it 
consists  of  many  millions  of  frightened  creatures  all  ac- 
commodating themselves  to  a  trend  that  is  not  there.  And 
that  is  becoming  more  and  more  the  situation  of  modern 
England.  Every  man  speaks  of  public  opinion,  and  means 
by  public  opinion,  public  opinion  minus  his  opinion. 
Every  man  makes  his  contribution  negative  under  the 
erroneous  impression  that  the  next  man's  contribution  is 
positive.  Every  man  surrenders  his  fancy  to  a  general 
tone  which  is  itself  a  surrender.  And  over  all  the  heart- 
less and  fatuous  unity  spreads  this  new  and  wearisome  and 
platitudinous  press,  incapable  of  invention,  incapable  of 
audacity,  capable  only  of  a  servility  all  the  more  contemp- 
tible because  it  is  not  even  a  servility  to  the  strong.  But 
all  who  begin  with  force  and  conquest  will  end  in  this. 

The  chief  characteristic  of  the  "New  Journalism"  is 
simply  that  it  is  bad  journalism.  It  is  beyond  all  com- 
parison the  most  shapeless,  careless,  and  colourless  work 
done  in  our  day. 

I  read  yesterday  a  sentence  which  should  be  written  in 
letters  of  gold  and  adamant ;  it  is  the  very  motto  of  the 
new  philosophy  of  Empire.  I  found  it  (as  the  reader  has 
already  eagerly  guessed)  in  Pearson  s  Magazine,  while  I 
was  communing  (soul  to  soul)  with  Mr.  C.  Arthur  Pearson, 
whose  first  and  suppressed  name  I  am  afraid  is  Chilperic. 
It  occurred  in  an  article  on  the  American  Presidential 
Election.  This  is  the  sentence,  and  every  one  should 
read  it  carefully,  and  roll  it  on  the  tongue,  till  all  the 
honey  be  tasted. 


THE  MILDNESS  OF  THE  YELLOW  PRESS      299 

"A  little  sound  common  sense  often  goes  further  with  an  audience  of 
American  working-men  than  much  high-flown  argument.  A  speaker 
who,  as  he  brought  forward  his  points,  hammered  nails  into  a  board, 
won  hundreds  of  votes  for  his  side  at  the  last  Presidential  Election." 

I  do  not  wish  to  soil  this  perfect  thing  with  comment ; 
the  words  of  Mercury  are  harsh  after  the  songs  of  Apollo. 
But  just  think  for  a  moment  of  the  mind,  the  strange 
inscrutable  mind,  of  the  man  who  wrote  that,  of  the  editor 
who  approved  it,  of  the  people  who  are  probably  impressed 
by  it,  of  the  incredible  American  working-man,  of  whom, 
for  all  I  know,  it  may  be  true.  Think  what  their  notion 
of  "common  sense"  must  be!  It  is  delightful  to  realize 
that  you  and  I  are  now  able  to  win  thousands  of  votes 
should  we  ever  be  engaged  in  a  Presidential  Election,  by 
doing  something  of  this  kind.  For  I  suppose  the  nails 
and  the  board  are  not  essential  to  the  exhibition  of  "com- 
mon sense";   there  may  be  variations.     We  may  read  — 

"A  little  common  sense  impresses  American  working-men  more 
than  high-flown  argument.  A  speaker  who,  as  he  made  his  points, 
pulled  buttons  off  his  waistcoat,  won  thousands  of  votes  for  his  side." 

Or, 

"Sound  common  sense  tells  better  in  America  than  high-flown  argu- 
ment. Thus  Senator  Budge,  who  threw  his  false  teeth  in  the  air  every 
time  he  made  an  epigram,  won  the  solid  approval  of  American  working- 
men." 

Or  again, 

"The  sound  common  sense  of  a  gentleman  from  Earlswood,  who 
stuck  straws  in  his  hair  during  the  progress  of  his  speech,  assured  the 
victory  of  Mr.  Roosevelt." 

There  are  many  other  elements  in  this  article  on  which 
I  should  love  to  linger.  But  the  matter  which  I  wish  to 
point  out  is  that  in  that  sentence  is  perfectly  revealed  the 


300  MODERN  ESSAYS 

whole  truth  of  what  our  Chamberlainites,  hustlers,  bus- 
tlers, Empire  builders,  and  strong,  silent  men,  really  mean 
by  "common  sense."  They  mean  knocking,  with  deafen- 
ing noise  and  dramatic  effect,  meaningless  bits  of  iron  into 
a  useless  bit  of  wood. 

A  man  who  goes  on  to  an  American  platform  and 
behaves  like  a  mountebank  fool  with  a  board  and  a  ham- 
mer ;  well,  I  do  not  blame  him ;  I  might  even  admire 
him.  He  may  be  a  dashing  and  quite  decent  strategist. 
He  may  be  a  fine  romantic  actor,  like  Burke  flinging  the 
dagger  on  the  floor.  He  may  even  (for  all  I  know)  be  a 
sublime  mystic,  profoundly  impressed  with  the  ancient 
meaning  of  the  divine  trade  of  the  Carpenter,  and  offering 
to  the  people  a  parable  in  the  form  of  a  ceremony.  All  I 
wish  to  indicate  is  the  abyss  of  mental  confusion  in  which 
such  wild  ritualism  can  be  called  "sound  common  sense." 
And  it  is  in  that  abyss  of  mental  confusion,  and  in  that 
alone,  that  the  new  Imperialism  lives  and  moves  and  has 
its  being.  The  whole  glory  and  greatness  of  Mr.  Cham- 
berlain consists  in  this :  that  if  a  man  hits  the  right  nail 
on  the  head  nobody  cares  where  he  hits  it  to  or  what  it 
does.  They  care  about  the  noise  of  the  hammer,  not 
about  the  silent  grip  of  the  nail.  Before  and  throughout 
the  African  war,  Mr.  Chamberlain  was  always  knocking 
in  nails,  with  ringing  decisiveness.  But  when  we  ask, 
"But  what  have  these  nails  held  together .^^  Where  is 
your  carpentry  ?  Where  are  your  contented  Outlanders  ? 
Where  is  your  free  South  Africa?  Where  is  your  British 
prestige?  What  have  your  nails  done?"  then  what 
answer  is  there  ?  We  must  go  back  (with  an  affectionate 
sigh)  to  our  Pearson  for  the  answer  to  the  question  of 
what  the  nails  have  done :  "The  speaker  who  hammered 
nails  into  a  board  won  thousands  of  votes." 


THE  MILDNESS  OF  THE  YELLOW  PRESS      301 

Now  the  whole  of  this  passage  is  admirably  characteris- 
tic of  the  new  journaHsm  which  Mr.  Pearson  represents, 
the  new  journaHsm  which  has  just  purchased  the  8tmidard. 
To  take  one  instance  out  of  hundreds,  the  incomparable 
man  with  the  board  and  nails  is  described  in  the  Pearson's 
article  as  calling  out  (as  he  smote  the  symbolic  nail),  "Lie 
number  one.  Nailed  to  the  Mast !  Nailed  to  the  Mast ! " 
In  the  whole  office  there  was  apparently  no  compositor  or 
office-boy  to  point  out  that  we  speak  of  lies  being  nailed 
to  the  counter,  and  not  to  the  mast.  Nobody  in  the  office 
knew  that  Pearson  s  Magazine  was  falling  into  a  stale 
Irish  bull,  which  must  be  as  old  as  St.  Patrick.  This  is 
the  real  and  essential  tragedy  of  the  sale  of  the  Standard. 
It  is  not  merely  that  journalism  is  victorious  over  good 
literature.  It  is  that  bad  journalism  is  victorious  over 
good  journalism. 

It  is  not  that  one  article  which  we  consider  costly  and 
beautiful  is  being  ousted  by  another  kind  of  article  which 
we  consider  common  or  unclean.  It  is  that  of  the  same 
article  a  worse  quality  is  preferred  to  a  l)etter.  If  you 
like  popular  journalism  (as  I  do),  you  will  know  that 
Pearsons  Magazine  is  poor  and  weak  popular  journalism. 
You  will  know  it  as  certainly  as  you  know  bad  butter. 
You  will  know  as  certainly  that  it  is  poor  popular  journal- 
ism as  you  know  that  the  Strand,  in  the  great  days  of 
Sherlock  Holmes,  was  good  popular  journalism.  Mr. 
Pearson  has  been  a  monument  of  this  enormous  banality. 
About  everything  he  says  and  does  there  is  something 
infinitely  weak-minded.  He  clamours  for  home  trades 
and  employs  foreign  ones  to  print  his  paper.  When  this 
glaring  fact  is  pointed  out,  he  does  not  say  that  the  thing 
was  an  oversight,  like  a  sane  man.  He  cuts  it  off  with 
scissors,  like  a  child  of  three.     His  very  cunning  is  in- 


302  MODERN  ESSAYS 

fantile.  And  like  a  child  of  three,  he  does  not  cut  it  quite 
off.  In  all  human  records  I  doubt  if  there  is  such  an 
example  of  a  profound  simplicity  in  deception.  This  is 
the  sort  of  intelligence  which  now  sits  in  the  seat  of  the 
sane  and  honourable  old  Tory  journalism.  If  it  w^ere 
really  the  triumph  of  the  tropical  exuberance  of  the  Yankee 
press,  it  w^ould  be  vulgar,  but  still  tropical.  But  it  is  not. 
We  are  delivered  over  to  the  bramble,  and  from  the  mean- 
est of  the  shrubs  comes  the  fire  upon  the  cedars  of  Lebanon. 
The  only  question  now  is  how  much  longer  the  fiction 
will  endure  that  journalists  of  this  order  represent  public 
opinion.  It  may  be  doubted  whether  any  honest  and 
serious  Tariff  Reformer  would  for  a  moment  maintain 
that  there  was  any  majority  for  Tariff  Reform  in  the 
country  comparable  to  the  ludicrous  preponderance  which 
money  has  given  it  among  the  great  dailies.  The  only 
inference  is  that  for  purposes  of  real  public  opinion  the 
press  is  now  a  mere  plutocratic  oligarchy.  Doubtless  the 
public  buys  the  wares  of  these  men,  for  one  reason  or  an- 
other. But  there  is  no  more  reason  to  suppose  that  the 
public  admires  their  politics  than  that  the  public  admires 
the  delicate  philosophy  of  Mr.  Crosse  or  the  darker  and 
sterner  creed  of  Mr.  Black  well.  If  these  men  are  merely 
tradesmen,  there  is  nothing  to  say  except  that  there  are 
plenty  like  them  in  the  Battersea  Park  Road,  and  many 
much  better.  But  if  they  make  any  sort  of  attempt  to  be 
politicians,  we  can  only  point  out  to  them  that  they  are 
not  as  yet  even  good  journalists. 


WHAT  IS  EDUCATION  ?i 

BY 

Charles  Macomb  Flandkau 

A  curious,  and  clever,  modification  of  the  catalogue  appears  in  Mr. 
Flandrau's  essay.  By  a  series  of  eliminations  he  shows  what  education 
is  not,  tying  it  all  together  with  the  negative  that  knowledge  is  not  wisdom. 
This  he  does  by  a  continued  use  of  the  interrogation.  And  the  answers 
to  his  questions  show  no  thoroughfare.  Notice  also  the  extreme  use  of 
the  device  of  the  writer  speaking  in  the  first  person.  This  enables  him 
to  illustrate  his  points  by  his  personal  experiences.  The  result  is  that  he 
has  written  a  sparklingly  delightful  essay  upon  one  of  the  most  dreary 
subjects  in  the  world,  —  and  incidentally  charged  a  number  of  educa- 
tional windmills. 

Books,  the  titles  of  which  are  interrogatory,  always 
have  a  fascination  for  me.  "  What  is  Ibsenism .? "  "Can 
You  Forgive  Her?"  "What  Shall  We  Do  With  Our 
Girls?"  for  instance.  Of  course,  they  are  invariably  un- 
satisfactory and,  sometimes,  exasperating.  They  never 
really  answer  the  questions  they  propound,  and  they 
leave  one  somewhat  more  muddled  than  one  was  before. 
Tolstoi's  "What  is  Art?"  is  a  most  bigoted  and  tedious 
performance.  In  it  one  of  the  greatest  artists  of  modern 
times  elaborately  tells  one  nothing  whatever  about  art, 
and  leaves  one  with  the  impression  that  his  claim  on  im- 
mortality is  something  of  which  he  has  become  very 
much  ashamed.  But,  crafty  old  person  though  I  be,  I 
succumb  to  them  all,  and  read  them  because  I  can't  resist 
a  title  in  the  form  of  a  question. 

^  From  "Prejudices,"  by  permission  of  D.  Appleton  &  Co. 

303 


304  MODERN  ESSAYS 

At  present,  I  am  longing  for  someone  to  write  a  book 
and  call  it  "What  is  Education?"  What,  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  is  education  ?  Every  few  days  someone,  in  endeav- 
oring to  describe  and  sum  up  someone  else,  ends  with 
the  clinching  statement :  "And  the  strange  part  of  it  was 
that  he  was  a  man,  or  she  was  a  woman,  of  education." 
This  is  supposed  to  settle  the  matter  —  to  arouse  in  one's 
mind  a  definite  image.  "He  was  a  man  of  education," 
apparently  means  something,  but  what?  To  me  it  has 
come  to  mean  nothing  at  all.  A  short  time  ago  I  read  in 
the  morning  paper  of  a  dead  body  that  had  been  found  in 
the  river  and  taken  to  the  county  morgue.  "All  means 
of  identification  had  been  removed,"  wrote  the  reporter, 
in  commenting  on  the  incident,  "but,"  he  added,  "the 
body  was  evidently  that  of  a  man  of  education."  And, 
to  me,  the  remarkable  part  of  this  was  that  the  reporter, 
without  doubt,  had  a  hazy  idea  of  what  he  was  trying 
to  express.  In  the  poor,  dead,  unidentified  thing  he  had 
discovered  and  recognized  something  that,  to  him,  im- 
plied "education,"  but  how  he  did  it,  and  what  it  was, 
I  don't  know,  because  he  did  not  explain. 

There  are  in  this  connection  all  sorts  of  questions  I 
hope  the  author  of  the  book,  to  which  I  look  forward, 
will  answer.  Is,  for  instance,  "a  man  of  education"  the 
same  as  "an  educated  man"?  Or  is  one,  perhaps,  some- 
what more  —  well,  more  educated  than  the  other  ?  At 
times  both  these  phrases  sound  to  me  as  if  they  meant 
precisely  the  same  thing,  and  then  again  they  suddenly, 
through  no  wish  of  mine,  develop  subtle  but  important 
differences  that  cause  first  the  one  and  then  the  other  to 
seem  expressive  of  a  higher,  a  more  comprehensive,  form 
of  education.  Then,  too,  is  there  any  particular  point  at 
which  education  leaves  off   and   "cultivation"   begins? 


WHAT  IS  EDUCATION?  305 

And  can  a  person  be  "  cultivated  "  without  being  educated  ? 
The  words  education  and  cultivation  are  constantly  upon 
the  American  tongue,  but  what  do  they  mean?  Or,  do 
they  mean  something  entirely  different  to  everyone  who 
employs  them  ?  Every  American  girl  who  flirts  her  way 
through  the  high  school  is  "educated,"  and  it  would  be 
indeed  a  brave  man  who  dared  to  suggest  that  she  wasn't. 
But  is  she?  (Heaven  forbid  that  /  should  suggest  any- 
thing ;  I  merely  crave  information.)  And  here  let  me 
hasten  to  add  that  a  friend  of  mine  has  always  maintained, 
quite  seriously,  that  he  likes  me  in  spite  of  the  fact  that 
I  am,  as  he  expresses  it,  "one  of  the  most  illiterate  per- 
sons" of  his  acquaintance.  His  acquaintance,  it  is  some 
slight  comfort  to  remember,  is  not  large,  and  he  is  a 
doctor  of  philosophy  who  lectures  at  one  of  the  great 
English  universities.  Not  only  has  he  read  and  studied 
much,  his  memory  is  appalling ;  he  has  never  forgotten 
anything.  From  his  point  of  view  I  am  not  "an  educated 
person."  But  then,  in  the  opinion  of  Macaulay,  Addison 
was  sadly  lacking  in  cultivation  !  "He  does  not  appear  to 
have  attained  more  than  an  ordinary  acquaintance  with 
the  political  and  moral  writers  of  Rome ;  nor  was  his  own 
Latin  prose  by  any  means  equal  to  his  Latin  verse," 
Macaulay  complains  in  the  Edinburgh  Review  in  1843. 
And  while  Macaulay  admits  that  "Great  praise  is  due  to 
the  notes  which  Addison  appended  to  his  version  of  the 
second  and  third  books  of  the  Metamorphoses,"  and  con- 
fesses them  to  be  "rich  in  apposite  references  to  Virgil, 
Statins  and  Claudian,"  he  cannot  understand  anyone's 
failing  to  allude  to  Euripides  and  Theocritus,  waxes  in- 
dignant over  the  fact  that  Addison  quoted  more  from 
Ausonius  and  Manilius  than  from  Cicero,  and  feels  posi- 
tively hurt  at  his  having  cited  "the  languid  hexameters 


\ 

306  MODERN  ESSAYS 

of  Silius  Italicus,"  rather  than  the  "authentic  narrative 
of  Polybius."  In  Rome  and  Florence  —  Macaulay  con- 
tinues, more  in  sorrow  than  in  anger  —  Addison  saw  all 
the  best  ancient  works  of  art,  "without  recalling  one 
single  verse  of  Pindar,  of  Callimachus,  or  of  the  Attic 
dramatists." 

Of  course  all  this  is  very  sad  and  leaves  us  quite  cross 
with  Addison  for  having  deluded  us  into  believing  him  to 
be  a  person  of  considerable  erudition.  How  could  any- 
body in  the  presence  of  a  statue  be  so  absent-minded  as 
not  to  recall  a  single  verse  of  Pindar  or  Callimachus? 
And  how  hopelessly  superficial  must  be  the  mind  that 
actually  prefers  the  languid  hexameters  of  Silius  Italicus 
to  the  authentic  narrative  of  Polybius  !  Yet,  on  the  other 
hand,  if  we  casually  referred  to  Polybius  while  conversing 
with  most  of  our  educated  and  even  so-called  cultivated 
acquaintances,  how  many  of  them,  I  wonder,  would  know 
whether  we  were  talking  about  a  Greek  historian  or  a 
patent  medicine.  Macaulay  would  have  considered  them 
hopeless ;  we  (and  they)  are  in  the  habit  (perhaps  it  is  a 
very  bad  habit  —  I  don't  know)  of  regarding  them  as 
educated. 

Another  question  that  my  suppositious  author  must 
devote  a  chapter  to,  is  the  difference  between  just  an 
education  and  a  "liberal"  education.  We  used  to  hear 
much  more  about  a  "liberal"  education  than  we  do  now, 
although  Prexy  Eliot  has  of  late  endeavored  to  restore  the 
phrase  as  well  as  the  thing  itself.  When  does  an  educa- 
tion leave  off  being  penurious,  so  to  speak,  and  become 
liberal?  According  to  Mr.  Eliot,  Milton's  "Areopagit- 
ica"  helps  a  lot.  I  once  read  Milton's  "Areopagitica" 
("but  not  for  love")  with  great  care,  and  when  I  had 
finished  it  I  had  to  procure  at  much  trouble  and  expense 


WHAT  IS  EDUCATION?  307 

another  book  (written  some  hundreds  of  years  later) 
that  told  me  what  it  was  all  about.  The  next  day  I 
passed  an  examination  in  the  subject  —  and  to-day  I 
couldn't,  if  my  life  were  at  stake,  recall  the  nature  or  the 
purpose  of  the  work  in  question  or  even  explain  the  mean- 
ing of  the  title.  It  is  possible,  of  course,  that  this  is  more 
my  fault  than  Milton's,  but  whoever  is  to  blame,  I  can 
truthfully  say  that  never  before  or  since  have  I  read  any- 
thing so  completely  uninteresting  or  that  contributed  so 
little  to  the  liberality  of  my  education.  In  Mr.  Eliot's 
opinion,  however,  and  no  one  more  firmly  believes  in  the 
soundness  of  Mr.  Eliot's  opinions  than  I  do,  this  ghastly, 
unintelligible,  jaw-breaking  relic  of  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury is,  if  not  absolutely  essential  to  a  liberal  education, 
at  least  highly  conducive  to  one.  What  on  earth  does  it 
all  signify  ? 

Some  persons  pin  their  entire  faith  to  a  correct  use  of, 
the  pronouns  I  and  me.  They  cheerfully  commit  every 
other  form  of  linguistic  violence,  but  as  long  as  they  can 
preserve  sufficient  presence  of  mind  boldly  to  say  once  in 
so  often  something  like,  "He  left  James  and  me  behind," 
instead  of  resorting  to  the  cowardly  "James  and  myself." 
or  the  elegantly  ungrammatical  "James  and  I,"  they  feel 
that  their  educational  integrity  has  been  preserved. 
Others  believe  that  education  and  true  refinement  begin 
and  end  with  always  saying,  "You  would  better,"  instead 
of  "You  had  better,"  while  Mr.  Eliot,  in  musing  on  the 
career  of  Mr.  Roosevelt,  no  doubt  remarks  to  himself, 
"An  estimable,  even  an  interesting  man,  but  is  he,  after 
all,  conversant  with  the  '  Areopagitica' .f^ "  (I  hate  to 
admit  it,  but  I  think  it  highly  probable  that  he  is.)  And 
Macaulay,  in  the  book  review  from  which  I  have  quoted, 
disposes   once   and   for   all   of   a   certain   scholar  named 


308  MODERN  ESSAYS 

Blackniore  —  rips  open  his  intellectual  back,  in  fact,  by 
stating  with  dignified  disgust:  "Of  Blackniore 's  attain- 
ments in  the  ancient  tongues,  it  may  be  sufficient  to  say 
that,  in  his  prose,  he  has  confounded  an  aphorism  with  an 
apothegm."  Isn't  it  all  wonderful  ?  And  doesn't  it  make 
you  wish  that  someone  would  write  a  work  called,  "  What 
is  Education?"  so  you  could  find  out  whether  you  were 
educated  or  not? 

Of  late  I  have  begun  to  have  an  ineradicable  conviction 
that  I  am  not  —  and  this,  not  because  I  have  a  perverse 
fondness  for  the  "languid"  vocabulary  of  Silius  Italicus  (of 
whom,  of  course,  I  never  had  heard)  but  because  I  appar- 
ently know  so  little  about  the  idiom  that,  by  inheritance 
and  environment,  I  am  privileged  to  call  my  own.  Not 
long  ago,  in  reading  a  passage  of  excellent  English  prose, 
I  came  across  a  word  that  suddenly,  as  words  have  a 
devilish  way  of  doing,  stood  out  from  the  page  and  chal- 
lenged me.  The  word  was  "nadir."  "At  this  period  he 
was  at  the  nadir  of  his  fortunes,"  was,  I  think,  the  sentence 
in  which  it  occurred,  and  from  the  context  I  was  able  to 
divine  not  the  exact  meaning  of  the  term,  but  the  general 
idea  it  expressed.  It  meant,  I  could  see,  that  the  person 
in  question  had  experienced  a  run  of  bad  luck,  that  his 
affairs,  for  the  time  being,  were  in  anything  but  a  pros- 
perous condition.  But  this  was  very  far  from  knowing 
the  specific  meaning  of  the  word  "nadir."  It  was  obvi- 
ously a  noun,  and  a  simple-looking  little  creature  at  that, 
yet  I  neither  knew  how  to  pronounce  it  nor  what  it  meant. 
So  I  made  a  note  of  it,  intending,  later,  to  inform  myself. 
Further  on,  I  came  to  the  word  "apogee,"  a  familiar 
combination  of  letters  that  suddenl}^  appeared  to  be  per- 
fectly absurd.  The  gentlemen  referred  to  was  now  no 
longer  at  the  nadir  of  his  fortunes  —  he  was  at  the  "apo- 


WHAT  IS  EDUCATION?  309 

gee"  of  them,  and,  of  course,  I  was  able  to  guess  that 
something  agreeable  had  happened  to  him  of  late.  But 
what,  after  all,  was  an  apogee?  I  had  often  read  the 
word  before,  and  I  feel  sure  that  it  may  be  found  here  and 
there  among  my  "complete  works,"  employed  with  an 
air  of  authority.  But,  upon  my  soul,  I  didn't  know  what 
it  meant,  and,  therefore,  virtuously  made  another  little 
note. 

Once  started  upon  this  mad  career  of  disillusionment, 
there  seemed  to  be  absolutely  no  end  to  it,  and  I  read  on 
and  on,  no  longer  for  the  pleasure  of  reading,  but  more 
because  the  book  had  become  like  one  of  those  electric 
machines  with  metal  handles,  where,  after  turning  on  the 
current  with  a  cent,  you  hang  on  in  interesting  agony 
because  you  can't  let  go.  "Not  one  jot  nor  tittle!"  I 
groaned  as  I  wrote  it  down.  "Jot"  as  a  verb,  conveyed 
something  to  me,  but  what  was  it  when  it  became  a  noun  ? 
And  what  sort  of  a  thing,  for  heaven's  sake,  was  a  "tittle"  ? 
It  sounded  more  like  a  kitchen  utensil  than  anything  else. 
(Polly,  put  the  tittle  on  —  No,  that  wouldn't  do.)  And 
why,  also,  were  jots  and  tittles  such  inseparable  com- 
panions.? In  all  my  life  I  had  never  met  a  solitary 
tittle  —  a  tittle  walking  about  alone,  so  to  speak,  un- 
accompanied by  a  devoted  jot.  Why  was  it  that  when 
I  did  meet  them,  hand  in  hand,  as  usual,  I  didn't  know 
what  they  were? 

By  this  time  I  was  beginning  to  be  verbally  groggy. 
What,  I  wondered,  was  —  or,  rather,  wasn't  —  "a  scin- 
tilla of  evidence"?  (For,  oddly  enough,  one  is  never 
informed  that  there  is  a  scintilla  of  evidence,  but  merely 
that  there  isn't.)  And  just  how  did  it  happen,  in  the 
first  place,  that  a  lack  of  evidence  should  have  been  called 
a  "scintilla,"  whereas  a  certain  kind  of  expensive  gray 


310  MODERN  ESSAYS 

fur  was  called  a  "chinchilla."  Scintilla  chinchilla,  scin- 
tilla chinchilla  —  the  jury  was  unable  to  find  a  chin- 
chilla of  evidence,  although  Mrs.  Vasterbolt  was  present 
at  the  trial  in  a  handsome  coat  of  the  costliest  scintilla. 
Why  not  ?  But  as  madness  seemed  to  be  lurking  in  that 
direction,  I  hastened  feverishly  on  to  "adamant."  Oh, 
yes,  I  know  it's  something  very  hard  and  unyielding  and, 
in  the  kind  of  novels  that  no  one  reads  any  more,  someone 
is,  at  a  critical  moment,  always  "as"  it  —  never  "like" 
it.  But  what  is  it  ?  It  might  be  some  sort  of  a  mytho- 
logical cliff  against  which  people  were  supposed  ineffect- 
ually to  have  hurled  themselves ;  it  might  be  a  kind  of 
metal,  or  a  particularly  durable  precious  stone,  or  a  satis- 
factory species  of  paving  material.  It  might  be  any  old 
thing ;  I  don't  know.  What  in  the  dickens  does  it  mean 
to  "dree  your  own  weird"  .'*  For,  as  I  almost  tore  off  a 
page  in  my  anxiety  to  turn  it,  my  eyes  caught  sight  of : 
" '  Everyone  must  dree  his  own  weird,'  she  answered,  senten- 
tiously."  Early  in  life  it  had  dawned  on  me  that  to  be 
told  you  must  "dree  your  own  weird"  was  merely  a  more 
obscure  and  delicate  fashion  of  telling  you  that  you  must 
"skin  your  own  skunk";  and  yet  I  very  much  doubt  if 
the  verb  "to  dree"  means  to  skin,  or  if  "weird,"  used  as 
a  noun,  has  much  connection  with  the  fragrant  little 
denizen  of  our  forests  whom  we  all,  I  trust,  are  accustomed 
to  refer  to  as  the  mephitis  Americana. 

On  and  on  I  toiled  for  another  hour,  at  the  end  of  which 
time  I  had  a  formidable  list  of  ordinary  words  belonging 
to  my  own  language,  as  to  whose  real  meaning  I  was 
completely  in  the  dark.  To-day  I  intended  to  look  them 
all  up  and  write  a  charming  little  paper  on  them,  primarily 
designed,  of  course,  to  make  dear  reader  gasp  at  the  scope 
and  thoroughness    of    my   education.     But    the    day    is 


WHAT  IS  EDUCATION?  311 

indescribably  hot,  and,  as  I  have  been  away,  my  diction- 
ary, unfortunately,  is  gritty  with  dust.  To  get  up  and 
slap  at  the  corpulent  thing  with  a  damp  towel  would  be 
most  repulsive.  I  shan't  do  it.  Instead  I  shall  recall 
that  the  most  intellectual  nation  in  the  world  has  a  saying 
to  the  effect  that,  "On  peut  etre  fort  instruit  sans  avoir 
d' education." 


WHY  A  CLASSIC   IS  A   CLASSIC  ^ 

BY 

Arnold  Bennett 

In  one  section  of  his  handbook  on  Literary  Taste,  Mr.  Arnold 
Bennett  wishes  his  readers  to  realize  that  the  first  essential  to  literary 
taste  is  an  enjoyment  of  literature.  That  conception  is  his  objective 
point.  Therefore  as  in  an  argument,  he  starts  with  the  generalization 
that  the  majority  of  people  are  indifferent  to  literature.  This  he  assumes. 
But  if  this  be  true,  the  reputation  of  a  great  author  must  depend  not  upon 
the  majority  but  upon  the  passionate  minority.  This  is  the  case  also 
with  the  posthumous  reputation.  But  the  minority  are  thus  passionate 
because  of  the  intensity  of  their  enjoyment.  Therefore,  the  first  essential 
to  literary  taste  is  an  enjoyment  of  literature.  From  this  very  brief 
analysis  it  is  clear  that  the  essay  is  conceived  as  a  whole,  and  that  each 
paragraph  is  a  step  to  a  predetermined  end.  Contrast  this  method 
with  that  used  in  the  essay  on  Tact  by  Lord  Avebury.  Here,  having 
granted  the  first  premise,  the  reader  is  carried  irresistibly  to  the  final 
conclusion.  Clearly  this  type  of  essay  is  more  difficult  to  write  and 
requires  careful  thought  before  composition  is  begun,  but  it  is  equally 
clear  that  it  is  more  convincing. 

The  large  majority  of  our  fellow-citizens  care  as  much 
about  literature  as  they  care  about  aeroplanes  or  the 
programme  of  the  Legislature.  They  do  not  ignore  it ; 
they  are  not  quite  indifferent  to  it.  But  their  interest  in 
it  is  faint  and  perfunctory;  or,  if  their  interest  happens 
to  be  violent,  it  is  spasmodic.  Ask  the  two  hundred 
thousand  persons  whose  enthusiasm  made  the  vogue  of 

^  From  "Literary  Taste;  How  to  Form  It,"  by  permission  of 
George  H.  Doran  Co. 

312 


WHY  A  CLASSIC  IS  A  CLASSIC  313 

a  popular  novel  ten  years  ago  what  they  think  of  that 
novel  now,  and  you  will  gather  that  they  have  utterly 
forgotten  it,  and  that  they  would  no  more  dream  of  read- 
ing it  again  than  of  reading  Bishop  Stubbs's  Select  Char- 
ters. Probably  if  they  did  read  it  again  they  would  not 
enjoy  it  —  not  because  the  said  novel  is  a  whit  worse  now 
than  it  was  ten  years  ago ;  not  because  their  taste  has 
improved  —  but  because  they  have  not  had  sufficient 
practice  to  be  able  to  rely  on  their  taste  as  a  means  of 
permanent  pleasure.  They  simply  don't  know  from  one 
day  to  the  next  what  will  please  them. 


In  the  face  of  this  one  may  ask :  Why  does  the  great 
and  universal  fame  of  classical  authors  continue.'*  The 
answer  is  that  the  fame  of  classical  authors  is  entirely 
independent  of  the  majority.  Do  you  suppose  that  if 
the  fame  of  Shakespeare  depended  on  the  man  in  the 
street  it  would  survive  a  fortnight?  The  fame  of  classi- 
cal autjiors  is  orginally  made,  and  it  is  maintained,  by  a 
passionate  few.  Even  when  a  first-class  author  has  en- 
joyed immense  success  during  his  lifetime,  the  majority 
have  never  appreciated  him  so  sincerely  as  they  have 
appreciated  second-rate  men.  He  has  always  been  reen- 
forced  by  the  ardour  of  the  passionate  few.  And  in  the 
case  of  an  author  who  has  emerged  into  glory  after  his 
death  the  happy  sequel  has  been  due  solely  to  the  obsti- 
nate perseverance  of  the  few.  They  could  not  leave  him 
alone ;  they  would  not.  They  kept  on  savouring  him, 
and  talking  about  him,  and  buying  him,  and  they  gener- 
ally behaved  with  such  eager  zeal,  and  they  were  so  authori- 
tative and  sure  of  themselves,  that  at  last  the  majority 
grew  accustomed  to  the  sound  of  his  name  and  placidly 


314  MODERN  ESSAYS 

agreed  to  the  proposition  that  he  was  a  genius;   the  ma- 
jority really  did  not  care  very  much  either  way. 

4c  4c  iN  *  *  4:  4e 

And  it  is  by  the  passionate  few  that  the  renown  of 
genius   is   kept    alive   from   one   generation   to    another. 
These  few  are  always  at  work.     They  are  always  redis- 
covering   genius.     Their    curiosity    and    enthusiasm    are 
exhaustless,  so  that  there  is  little  chance  of  genius  being 
ignored.     And,  moreover,  they  are  always  working  either 
for  or  against  the  verdicts  of  the  majority.     The  majority 
can  make  a  reputation,  but  it  is  too  careless  to  maintain 
it.     If,  by  accident,  the  passionate  few  agree  with  the 
majority  in  a  particular  instance,  they  will  frequently  remind 
the  majority  that  such  and  such  a  reputation  has  been  made, 
and  the  majority  will  idly  concur  :  "Ah,  yes.    By  the  way, 
we  must  not  forget  that  such  and  such  a  reputation  exists." 
Without  that  persistent  memory-jogging  the  reputation 
would  quickly  fall  into  the  oblivion  which  is  death.     The 
passionate  few  only  have  their  way  by  reason  of  the  fact 
that  they  are  genuinely  interested  in  literature,  that  litera- 
ture matters  to  them.     They  conquer  by  their  obstinacy 
alone,  by  their  eternal  repetition  of  the  same  statements. 
Do  you  suppose  they  could  prove  to  the  man  in  the  street 
that  Shakespeare  was  a  great  artist  ^     The  said  man  would 
not  even  understand  the  terms  they  employed.     But  when 
he  is  told  ten  thousand  times,  and  generation  after  genera- 
tion, that  Shakespeare  was  a  great  artist,  the  said  man  be- 
lieves —  not  by  reason,  but  by  faith.     And  he  too  repeats 
that  Shakespeare  was  a  great  artist,  and  he  buys  the  com- 
plete works  of  Shakespeare  and  puts  them  on  his  shelves, 
and  he  goes  to   see  the   marvellous   stage-effects  which 
accompany    King   Lear    or    Hamlet,    and    comes    back 


WHY  A  CLASSIC  IS  A  CLASSIC  315 

religiously  convinced  that  Shakespeare  was  a  great  artist. 
All  because  the  passionate  few  could  not  keep  their  ad- 
miration of  Shakespeare  to  themselves.  This  is  not  cyni- 
cism ;  but  truth.  And  it  is  important  that  those  who 
wish  to  form  their  literary  taste  should  grasp  it. 


What  causes  the  passionate  few  to  make  such  a  fuss  about 
literature.^  There  can  be  only  one  reply.  They  find  a 
keen  and  lasting  pleasure  in  literature.  They  enjoy  litera- 
ture as  some  men  enjoy  beer.  The  recurrence  of  this 
pleasure  naturally  keeps  their  interest  in  literature  very 
much  alive.  They  are  for  ever  making  new  researches, 
for  ever  practising  on  themselves.  They  learn  to  under- 
stand themselves.  They  learn  to  know  what  they  want. 
Their  taste  becomes  surer  and  surer  as  their  experience 
lengthens.  They  do  not  enjoy  to-day  what  will  seem  tedi- 
ous to  them  to-morrow.  When  they  find  a  book  tedious,  no 
amount  of  popular  clatter  will  persuade  them  that  it  is 
pleasurable ;  and  when  they  find  it  pleasurable  no  chill  si- 
lence of  the  street-crowds  will  affect  their  conviction  that 
the  book  is  good  and  permanent.  They  have  faith  in 
themselves.  What  are  the  qualities  in  a  book  which  give 
keen  and  lasting  pleasure  to  the  passionate  few  "^  This  is 
a  question  so  difficult  that  it  has  never  yet  been  completely 
answered.  You  may  talk  lightly  about  truth,  insight, 
knowledge,  wisdom,  humour,  and  beauty.  But  these 
comfortable  words  do  not  really  carry  you  very  far,  for 
each  of  them  has  to  be  defined,  especially  the  first  and 
last.  It  is  all  very  well  for  Keats  in  his  airy  manner 
to  assert  that  beauty  is  truth,  truth  beauty,  and  that 
that  is  all  he  knows  or  needs  to  know.  I,  for  one,  need 
to  know  a  lot  more.     And  I  never  shall  know.     Nobody, 


316  MODERN  ESSAYS 

not  even  Hazlitt  nor  Sainte-Beuve,  has  ever  finally  ex- 
plained why  he  thought  a  book  beautiful.  I  take  the 
first  fine  lines  that  come  to  hand  — 

The  woods  of  Arcady  are  dead. 
And  over  is  their  antique  joy  — 

and  I  say  that  those  lines  are  beautiful  because  they  give 
me  pleasure.  But  why  ?  No  answer  !  I  only  know  that 
the  passionate  few  will,  broadly,  agree  with  me  in  deriving 
this  mysterious  pleasure  from  those  lines.  I  am  only  con- 
vinced that  the  liveliness  of  our  pleasure  in  those  and  many 
other  lines  by  the  same  author  will  ultimately  cause  the 
majority  to  believe,  by  faith,  that  W.  B.  Yeats  is  a  genius. 
The  one  reassuring  aspect  of  the  literary  affair  is  that  the 
passionate  few  are  passionate  about  the  same  things.  A 
continuance  of  interest  does,  in  actual  practice,  lead  ulti- 
mately to  the  same  judgments.  There  is  only  the  differ- 
ence in  width  of  interest.  Some  of  the  passionate  few 
lack  catholicity,  or,  rather,  the  whole  of  their  interest  is 
confined  to  one  narrow  channel;  they  have  none  left 
over.  These  men  help  specially  to  vitalise  the  reputa- 
tions of  the  narrower  geniuses :  such  as  Crashaw.  But 
their  active  predilections  never  contradict  the  general 
verdict  of  the  passionate  few ;    rather  they  reinforce  it. 


A  classic  is  a  work  which  gives  pleasure  to  the  minority 
which  is  intensely  and  permanently  interested  in  literature. 
It  lives  on  because  the  minority,  eager  to  renew  the  sensa- 
tion of  pleasure,  is  eternally  curious  and  is  therefore  engaged 
in  an  eternal  process  of  rediscovery.  A  classic  does  not 
survive  for  any  ethical  reason.  It  does  not  survive  be- 
cause it  conforms  to  certain  canons,  or  because  neglect 


WHY  A  CLASSIC  IS  A  CLASSIC  317 

would  not  kill  it.  It  survives  because  it  is  a  source  of 
pleasure,  and  because  the  passionate  few  can  no  more 
neglect  it  than  a  bee  can  neglect  a  flower.  The  passionate 
few  do  not  read  "the  right  things"  because  they  are  right. 
That  is  to  put  the  cart  before  the  horse.  "The  right 
things  "  are  the  right  things  solely  because  the  passionate 
few  like  reading  them.  Hence  —  and  I  now  arrive  at  my 
point  —  the  one  primary  essential  to  literary  taste  is  a  hot 
interest  in  literature.  If  you  have  that,  all  the  rest  will 
come.  It  matters  nothing  that  at  present  you  fail  to  find 
pleasure  in  certain  classics.  The  driving  impulse  of  your 
interest  will  force  you  to  acquire  experience,  and  experience 
will  teach  you  the  use  of  the  means  of  pleasure.  You  do 
not  know  the  secret  ways  of  yourself  :  that  is  all.  A  con- 
tinuance of  interest  must  inevitably  bring  you  to  the 
keenest  joys.  But,  of  course,  experience  may  be  acquired 
judiciously  or  injudiciously,  just  as  Putney  may  be  reached 
via  Walham  Green  or  via  St.  Petersburg. 


HOMER  AND   THE   STUDY  OF   GREEK  ^ 

BY 

Andrew  Lang 

Andrew  Lang  wishes  to  argue  in  defense  of  the  study  of  Greek.  In 
brief,  the  argument  may  be  stated  :  although  the  study  of  Greek  has  fallen 
into  disfavor,  some  boys  will  profit  greatly  from  the  study;  they  will 
profit  from  it,  because  they  will  read  Homer ;  and  Homer  must  be  read 
in  the  original  because  the  poems  are  not  capable  of  translation.  As  the 
essay  is  avowedly  written  for  those  that  do  not  believe  in  the  study  of 
Greek,  he  takes  two  paragraphs  to  an  exposition  of  that  side.  But 
granting  that  for  the  many  perhaps  it  is  a  waste  of  time,  he  argues  for 
the  few.  Here  he  frankly  drops  into  autobiography.  He  gives  his  personal 
testimony.  This  leads  easily  to  his  appreciation  of  Homer.  Then  to 
illustrate  the  untranslatable  nature  of  Homer,  he  gives  parodies  of 
translations  by  various  types  of  authors.  On  one  hand,  in  so  far  as  the 
parodies  are  clever,  he  gains  by  concrete  illustration.  On  the  other, 
since  the  verses  are  for  the  most  part  his  imitations  of  what  the  authors 
might  have  written,  does  not  this  leave  a  suspicion  of  unfairness  ? 
Actually  from  the  reading  of  these  imaginary  translations,  would  the  stu- 
dent be  impelled  to  study  Greek  ?  Moreover,  is  there  not  an  element 
of  pedantry  in  his  references  to  the  various  authors  ?  Surely  the  reader 
familiar  with  the  difference  in  style  between  the  translations  of  Chapman 
and  Cowper  would  have  already  decided  for  himself  the  question  at 
issue. 

The  Greek  language  is  being  ousted  from  education, 
here,  in  France,  and  in  America.  The  speech  of  the 
earhest  democracies  is  not  democratic  enough  for  modern 
anarchy.     There  is  nothing  to  be  gained,  it  is  said,  by  a 

^  From  "Essays  in  Little,"  by  permission  of  Charles  Scribner's  Sons. 

318 


HOMER  AND  THE   STUDY  OF  GREEK       319 

knowledge  of  Greek.  We  have  not  to  fight  the  battle  of 
life  with  Hellenic  waiters ;  and,  even  if  we  had,  Romaic, 
or  modern  Greek,  is  much  more  easily  learned  than  the 
old  classical  tongue.  The  reason  of  this  comparative  ease 
will  be  plain  to  any  one  who,  retaining  a  vague  memory  of 
his  Greek  grammar,  takes  up  a  modern  Greek  newspaper. 
He  will  find  that  the  idioms  of  the  modern  newspaper  are  the 
idioms  of  all  newspapers,  that  the  grammar  is  the  grammar 
of  modern  languages,  that  the  opinions  are  expressed  in 
barbarous  translations  of  barbarous  French  and  English 
journalistic  cliches  or  commonplaces.  This  ugly  and  un- 
dignified mixture  of  the  ancient  Greek  characters,  and  of 
ancient  Greek  words  with  modern  grammar  and  idioms, 
and  stereotyped  phrases,  is  extremely  distasteful  to  the 
scholar.  Modern  Greek,  as  it  is  at  present  printed,  is 
not  the  natural  spoken  language  of  the  peasants.  You 
can  read  a  Greek  leading  article,  though  you  can  hardly 
make  sense  of  a  Greek  rural  ballad.  The  peasant  speech 
is  a  thing  of  slow  development ;  there  is  a  basis  of  ancient 
Greek  in  it,  with  large  elements  of  Slavonic,  Turkish, 
Italian,  and  other  imposed  or  imported  languages.  Mod- 
ern literary  Greek  is  a  hybrid  of  revived  classical  words, 
blended  with  the  idioms  of  the  speeches  which  have  arisen 
since  the  fall  of  the  Roman  Empire.  Thus,  thanks  to  the 
modern  and  familiar  element  in  it,  modern  Greek  "as 
she  is  writ"  is  nmch  more  easily  learned  than  ancient 
Greek.  Consequently,  if  any  one  has  need  for  the  speech 
in  business  or  travel,  he  can  acquire  as  much  of  it  as  most  of 
us  have  of  French,  with  considerable  ease.  People  there- 
fore argue  that  ancient  Greek  is  particularly  superfluous 
in  schools.  Why  waste  time  on  it,  they  ask,  which  could 
be  expended  on  science,  on  modern  languages,  or  any  other 
branch  of  education  ?     There  is  a  great  deal  of  justice  in 


320  MODERN  ESSAYS 

this  position.  The  generation  of  men  who  are  now  middle- 
aged  bestowed  much  time  and  labour  on  Greek ;  and  in 
what,  it  may  be  asked,  are  they  better  for  it  ?  Very  few 
of  them  "keep  up  their  Greek."  Say,  for  example,  that 
one  was  in  a  form  of  fifty  boys  who  began  the  study,  it  is 
odds  against  five  of  the  survivors  still  reading  Greek  books. 
The  worldly  advantages  of  the  study  are  slight :  it  may 
lead  three  of  the  fifty  to  a  good  degree,  and  one  to  a 
fellowship ;  but  good  degrees  may  be  taken  in  other  sub- 
jects, and  fellowships  may  be  abolished,  or  "nationalised," 
with  all  other  forms  of  property. 

Then,  why  maintain  Greek  in  schools.^  Only  a  very 
minute  percentage  of  the  boys  who  are  tormented  with  it 
really  learn  it.  Only  a  still  smaller  percentage  can  read 
it  after  they  are  thirty.  Only  one  or  two  gain  any  material 
advantage  by  it.  In  very  truth,  most  minds  are  not 
framed  by  nature  to  excel  and  to  delight  in  literature, 
and  only  to  such  minds  and  to  schoolmasters  is  Greek 
valuable. 

This  is  the  case  against  Greek  put  as  powerfully  as  one 
can  state  it.  On  the  other  side,  we  may  say,  though  the 
remark  may  seem  absurd  at  first  sight,  that  to  have 
mastered  Greek,  even  if  you  forget  it,  is  not  to  have 
wasted  time.  It  really  is  an  educational  and  mental  dis- 
cipline. The  study  is  so  severe  that  it  needs  the  earnest 
application  of  the  mind.  The  study  is  averse  to  indolent 
intellectual  ways;  it  will  not  put  up  with  a  "there  or 
thereabouts,"  any  more  than  mathematical  ideas  admit 
of  being  made  to  seem  "extremely  plausible."  He  who 
writes,  and  who  may  venture  to  offer  himself  as  an  ex- 
ample, is  naturally  of  a  most  slovenly  and  slatternly  men- 
tal habit.  It  is  his  constant  temptation  to  "scamp" 
every  kind  of  work,  and  to  say  "it  will  do  well  enough." 


HOMER  AND   THE   STUDY  OF   GREEK       321 

He  hates  taking  trouble  and  verifying  references.  And 
he  can  honestly  confess  that  nothing  in  his  experience  has 
so  helped,  in  a  certain  degree,  to  counteract  those  tenden- 
cies —  as  the  labour  of  thoroughly  learning  certain  Greek 
texts  — ■  the  dramatists,  Thucydides,  some  of  the  books 
of  Aristotle.  Experience  has  satisfied  him  that  Greek  is 
of  real  educational  value,  and,  apart  from  the  acknowl- 
edged and  unsurpassed  merit  of  its  literature,  is  a  severe 
and  logical  training  of  the  mind.  The  mental  constitu- 
tion is  strengthened  and  braced  by  the  labour,  even  if 
the  language  is  forgotten  in  later  life. 

It  is  manifest,  however,  that  this  part  of  education  is 
not  for  everybody.  The  real  educational  problem  is  to 
discover  what  boys  Greek  w  ill  be  good  for,  and  what  boys 
will  only  waste  time  and  dawdle  over  it.  Certainly  to 
men  of  a  literary  turn  (a  very  minute  percentage),  Greek 
is  of  an  inestimable  value.  Great  poets,  even,  may  be 
ignorant  of  it,  as  Shakespeare  probably  was,  as  Keats  and 
Scott  certainly  were,  as  Alexandre  Dumas  was.  But 
Dumas  regretted  his  ignorance ;  Scott  regretted  it.  We 
know  not  how  much  Scott's  admitted  laxity  of  style  and 
hurried  careless  habit  might  have  been  modified  by  a 
knowledge  of  Greek;  how  much  of  grace,  permanence, 
and  generally  of  art,  his  genius  might  have  gained  from 
the  language  and  literature  of  Hellas.  The  most  Homeric 
of  modern  men  could  not  read  Homer.  As  for  Keats,  he 
was  born  a  Greek,  it  has  been  said ;  but  had  he  been  born 
with  a  knowledge  of  Greek,  he  never,  probably,  would 
have  been  guilty  of  his  chief  literary  faults.  This  is  not 
certain,  for  some  modern  men  of  letters  deeply  read  in 
Greek,  have  all  the  qualities  of  fustian  and  effusiveness 
which  Longinus  most  despised.  Greek  will  not  make  a 
luxuriously  Asiatic  mind  Hellenic,  it  is  certain ;  but  it  may, 


322  MODERN  ESSAYS 

at  least,  help  to  restrain  effusive  and  rhetorical  gabble. 
Our  Asiatic  rhetoricians  might  perhaps  be  even  more 
barbarous  than  they  are  if  Greek  were  a  sealed  book  to 
them.  However  this  may  be,  it  is,  at  least,  well  to  find 
out  in  a  school  what  boys  are  worth  instructing  in  the 
Greek  language.  Now,  of  their  worthiness,  of  their 
chances  of  success  in  the  study,  Homer  seems  the  best 
touchstone ;  and  he  is  certainly  the  most  attractive  guide 
to  the  study. 

At  present  boys  are  introduced  to  the  language  of  the 
Muses  by  pedantically  written  grammars,  full  of  the 
queerest  and  most  arid  metaphysical  and  philological 
verbiage.  The  very  English  in  which  these  deplorable 
books  are  composed  may  be  scientific,  may  be  compre- 
hensible by  and  useful  to  philologists,  but  is  utterly  heart- 
breaking to  boys. 

Philology  might  be  made  fascinating;  the  history  of  a 
word,  and  of  the  processes  by  which  its  different  forms, 
in  different  senses,  were  developed,  might  be  made  as 
interesting  as  any  other  story  of  events.  But  grammar 
is  not  taught  thus  :  boys  are  introduced  to  a  jargon  about 
matters  meaningless,  and  they  are  naturally  as  much 
enchanted  as  if  they  were  listening  to  a  chimoera  bombinans 
in  vacuo.  The  grammar,  to  them,  is  a  mere  buzz  in  a 
chaos  of  nonsense.  They  have  to  learn  the  buzz  by 
rote ;  and  a  pleasant  process  that  is  —  a  seductive  initia- 
tion into  the  mysteries.  When  they  struggle  so  far  as  to 
be  allowed  to  try  to  read  a  piece  of  Greek  prose,  they  are 
only  like  the  Marchioness  in  her  experience  of  beer :  she 
once  had  a  sip  of  it.  Ten  lines  of  Xenophon,  narrating 
how  he  marched  so  many  parasangs  and  took  breakfast, 
do  not  amount  to  more  than  a  very  unrefreshing  sip  of 
Greek.     Nobody  even  tells  the  boys  who  Xenophon  was, 


HOMER  AND  THE   STUDY  OF  GREEK       323 

what  he  did  there,  and  what  it  was  all  about.  Nobody 
gives  a  brief  and  interesting  sketch  of  the  great  march, 
of  its  history  and  objects.  The  boys  straggle  along  with 
Xenophon,  knowing  not  whence  or  whither: 

"They  stray  through  a  desolate  region. 
And  often  are  faint  on  the  march." 

One  by  one  they  fall  out  of  the  ranks ;  they  mutiny  against 
Xenophon ;  they  murmur  against  that  commander ;  they 
desert  his  flag.  They  determine  that  anything  is  better 
than  Greek,  that  nothing  can  be  worse  than  Greek,  and 
they  move  the  tender  hearts  of  their  parents.  They  are 
put  to  learn  German ;  which  they  do  not  learn,  unluckily, 
but  which  they  find  it  comparatively  easy  to  shirk.  In 
brief,  they  leave  school  without  having  learned  anything 
whatever. 

Up  to  a  certain  age  my  experiences  at  school  were  pre- 
cisely those  which  I  have  described.  Our  grammar  was 
not  so  philological,  abstruse  and  arid  as  the  instruments 
of  torture  employed  at  present.  But  I  hated  Greek  with 
a  deadly  and  sickening  hatred ;  I  hated  it  like  a  bully  and 
a  thief  of  time.  The  verbs  in  /xl  completed  my  intellect- 
ual discomfiture,  and  Xenophon  routed  me  with  horrible 
carnage.  I  could  have  run  away  to  sea,  but  for  a  strong 
impression  that  a  life  on  the  ocean  wave  "did  not  set  my 
genius,"  as  Alan  Breck  says.  Then  we  began  to  read 
Homer ;  and  from  the  very  first  words,  in  which  the  Muse 
is  asked  to  sing  the  wrath  of  Achilles,  Peleus'  son,  my  mind 
was  altered,  and  I  was  the  devoted  friend  of  Greek.  Here 
was  something  worth  reading  about ;  here  one  knew  where 
one  was ;  here  was  the  music  of  words,  here  were  poetry, 
pleasure,  and  life.  We  fortunately  had  a  teacher  (Dr. 
Hodson)  who  was  not  wildly  enthusiastic  about  grammar. 


324  MODERN  ESSAYS 

He  would  set  us  long  pieces  of  the  Iliad  or  Odyssey  to 
learn,  and,  when  the  day's  task  was  done,  would  make  us 
read  on,  adventuring  ourselves  in  "the  unseen,"  and  con- 
struing as  gallantly  as  we  might,  without  grammar  or 
dictionary.  On  the  following  day  we  surveyed  more  care- 
fully the  ground  we  had  pioneered  or  skirmished  over, 
and  then  advanced  again.  Thus,  to  change  the  metaphor, 
we  took  Homer  in  large  draughts,  not  in  sips :  in  sips  no 
epic  can  be  enjoyed.  We  now  revelled  in  Homer  like 
Keats  in  Spenser,  like  young  horses  let  loose  in  a  pasture. 
The  result  was  not  the  making  of  many  accurate  scholars, 
though  a  few  were  made ;  others  got  nothing  better  than 
enjoyment  in  their  work,  and  the  firm  belief,  opposed  to 
that  of  most  schoolboys,  that  the  ancients  did  not  write 
nonsense.  To  love  Homer,  as  Steele  said  about  loving  a 
fair  lady  of  quality,  "is  a  liberal  education." 

Judging  from  this  example,  I  venture  verj^  humbly  to 
think  that  any  one  who,  ev^en  at  the  age  of  Cato,  wants  to 
learn  Greek,  should  begin  where  Greek  literature,  where 
all  profane  literature  begins  —  with  Homer  himself.  It 
was  thus,  not  with  grammars  in  vacuo,  that  the  great 
scholars  of  the  Renaissance  began.  It  was  thus  that 
Ascham  and  Rabelais  began,  by  jumping  into  Greek  and 
splashing  about  till  they  learned  to  swim.  First,  of 
course,  a  person  must  learn  the  Greek  characters.  Then 
his  or  her  tutor  may  make  him  read  a  dozen  lines  of 
Homer,  marking  the  cadence,  the  surge  and  thunder  of  the 
hexameters  —  a  music  which,  like  that  of  the  Sirens,  few 
can  hear  without  being  lured  to  the  seas  and  isles  of  song. 
Then  the  tutor  might  translate  a  passage  of  moving  in- 
terest, like  Priam's  appeal  to  Achilles;  first,  of  course, 
explaining  the  situation.  Then  the  teacher  might  go 
over  some  lines,  minutely  pointing  out  how  the  Greek 


HOMER  AND   THE  STUDY  OF  GREEK       325 

words  are  etymologically  connected  with  many  words  in 
English.  Next,  he  might  take  a  substantive  and  a  verb, 
showing  roughly  how  their  inflections  arose  and  were 
developed,  and  how  they  retain  forms  in  Homer  which 
do  not  occur  in  later  Greek.  There  is  no  reason  why 
even  this  part  of  the  lesson  should  be  uninteresting.  By 
this  time  a  pupil  would  know,  more  or  less,  where  he  was, 
what  Greek  is,  and  what  the  Homeric  poems  are  like.  He 
might  thus  believe  from  the  first  that  there  are  good  reasons 
for  knowing  Greek ;  that  it  is  the  key  to  many  worlds  of 
life,  of  action,  of  beauty,  of  contemplation,  of  knowledge. 
Then,  after  a  few  more  exercises  in  Homer,  the  grammar 
being  judiciously  worked  in  along  with  the  literature  of 
the  epic,  a  teacher  might  discern  whether  it  was  worth 
while  for  his  pupils  to  continue  in  the  study  of  Greek. 
Homer  would  be  their  guide  into  the  "realms  of  gold." 
It  is  clear  enough  that  Homer  is  the  best  guide.  His  is 
the  oldest  extant  Greek,  his  matter  is  the  most  various 
and  delightful,  and  most  appeals  to  the  young,  who  are 
wearied  by  scraps  of  Xenophon,  and  who  cannot  be 
expected  to  understand  the  Tragedians.  But  Homer  is  a 
poet  for  all  ages,  all  races,  and  all  moods.  To  the  Greeks 
the  epics  were  not  only  the  best  of  romances,  the  richest 
of  poetry ;  not  only  their  oldest  documents  about  their 
own  history,  —  they  were  also  their  Bible,  their  treasury 
of  religious  traditions  and  moral  teaching.  With  the  Bible 
and  Shakespeare,  the  Homeric  poems  are  the  best  training 
for  life.  There  is  no  good  quality  that  they  lack  :  manli- 
ness, courage,  reverence  for  old  age  and  for  the  hospitable 
hearth ;  justice,  piety,  pity,  a  brave  attitude  towards  life 
and  death,  are  all  conspicuous  in  Homer.  He  has  to  write 
of  battles ;  and  he  delights  in  the  joy  of  battle,  and  in  all 
the  movement  of  war.     Yet  he  delights  not  less,  but  more, 


326  MODERN  ESSAYS 

in  peace  :  in  prosperous  cities,  hearths  secure,  in  the  tender 
beauty  of  children,  in  the  love  of  wedded  wives,  in  the 
frank  nobility  of  maidens,  in  the  beauty  of  earth  and  sky 
and  sea,  and  seaward  murmuring  river,  in  sun  and  snow, 
frost  and  mist  and  rain,  in  the  whispered  talk  of  boy  and 
girl  beneath  oak  and  pine  tree. 

Living  in  an  age  where  every  man  was  a  warrior,  where 
every  city  might  know  the  worst  of  sack  and  fire,  where 
the  noblest  ladies  might  be  led  away  for  slaves,  to  light 
the  fire  and  make  the  bed  of  a  foreign  master,  Homer 
inevitably  regards  life  as  a  battle.  To  each  man  on  earth 
comes  "the  wicked  day  of  destiny,"  as  Malory  uncon- 
sciously translates  it,  and  each  man  must  face  it  as  hardily 
as  he  may. 

Homer  encourages  them  by  all  the  maxims  of  chivalry 
and  honour.  His  heart  is  with  the  brave  of  either  side  — 
with  Glaucus  and  Sarpedon  of  Lycia  no  less  than  with 
Achilles  and  Patroclus.  "Ah,  friend,"  cries  Sarpedon, 
"if  once  escaped  from  this  battle  we  were  for  ever  to  be 
ageless  and  immortal,  neither  would  I  myself  fight  now  in 
the  foremost  ranks,  neither  would  I  urge  thee  into  the  wars 
that  give  renown ;  but  now  —  for  assuredly  ten  thousand 
fates  of  death  on  every  side  beset  us,  and  these  may  no 
man  shun,  nor  none  avoid  —  forward  now  let  us  go, 
whether  we  are  to  give  glory  or  to  win  it !"  And  forth 
they  go,  to  give  and  take  renown  and  death,  all  the  shields 
and  helms  of  Lycia  shining  behind  them,  through  the  dust 
of  battle,  the  singing  of  the  arrows,  the  hurtling  of  spears, 
the  rain  of  stones  from  the  Locrian  slings.  And  shields  are 
smitten,  and  chariot  horses  run  wild  with  no  man  to  drive 
them,  and  Sarpedon  drags  down  a  portion  of  the  Achaean 
battlement,  and  Aias  leaps  into  the  trench  with  his 
deadly  spear,  and  the  whole  battle  shifts  and  shines  be- 


HOMER  AND  THE   STUDY  OF  GREEK       327 

neath  the  sun.  Yet  he  who  sings  of  the  war,  and  sees  it 
with  his  sightless  eyes,  sees  also  the  Trojan  women  work- 
ing at  the  loom,  cheating  their  anxious  hearts  with  broidery 
work  of  gold  and  scarlet,  or  raising  the  song  to  Athene,  or 
heating  the  bath  for  Hector,  who  never  again  may  pass 
within  the  gates  of  Troy.  He  sees  the  poor  weaving 
woman,  weighing  the  wool,  that  she  may  not  defraud  her 
employers,  and  yet  may  win  bread  for  her  children.  He 
sees  the  children,  the  golden  head  of  Astyanax,  his  shrink- 
ing from  the  splendour  of  the  hero's  helm.  He  sees  the 
child  Odysseus,  going  with  his  father  through  the  orchard, 
and  choosing  out  some  apple  trees  "for  his  very  own."  It 
is  in  the  mouth  of  the  ruthless  Achilles,  the  fatal,  the  fated, 
the  swift-footed  hero  with  the  hands  of  death,  that  Homer 
places  the  tenderest  of  his  similes.  "Wherefore  weepest 
thou,  Patroclus,  like  a  fond  little  maid,  that  runs  by  her 
mother's  side,  praying  her  mother  to  take  her  up,  snatch- 
ing at  her  gown,  and  hindering  her  as  she  walks,  and  tear- 
fully looking  at  her  till  her  mother  takes  her  up  ?  —  like 
her,  Patroclus,  dost  thou  softly  weep." 

This  is  what  Chesterfield  calls  "  the  porter-like  language 
of  Homer's  heroes."  Such  are  the  moods  of  Homer,  so 
full  of  love  of  life  and  all  things  living,  so  rich  in  all  human 
sympathies,  so  readily  moved  when  the  great  hound  Argus 
welcomes  his  master,  whom  none  knew  after  twenty  years, 
but  the  hound  knew  him,  and  died  in  that  welcome.  With 
all  this  love  of  the  real,  which  makes  him  dwell  so  fondly 
on  every  detail  of  armour,  of  implement,  of  art ;  on  the 
divers-coloured  gold-work  of  the  shield,  on  the  making 
of  tires  for  chariot- wheels,  on  the  forging  of  iron,  on  the 
rose-tinted  ivory  of  the  Sidonians,  on  cooking  and  eating 
and  sacrificing,  on  pet  dogs,  on  wasps  and  their  ways, 
on  fishing,  on  the  boar  hunt,  on  scenes  in  baths  where  fair 


328  MODERN   ESSAYS 

maidens  lave  water  over  the  heroes,  on  undiscovered 
isles  with  good  harbours  and  rich  land,  on  ploughing, 
mowing,  and  sowing,  on  the  furniture  of  houses,  on  the 
golden  vases  wherein  the  white  dust  of  the  dead  is  laid,  — 
with  all  this  delight  in  the  real,  Homer  is  the  most  romantic 
of  poets.  He  walks  with  the  surest  foot  in  the  darkling 
realm  of  dread  Persephone,  beneath  the  poplars  on  the 
solemn  last  beach  of  Ocean.  He  has  heard  the  Siren's 
music,  and  the  song  of  Circe,  chanting  as  she  walks  to 
and  fro,  casting  the  golden  shuttle  through  the  loom  of 
gold.  He  enters  the  cave  of  the  Man  Eater;  he  knows 
the  unsunned  land  of  the  Cimmerians ;  in  the  summer  of 
the  North  he  has  looked,  from  the  fiord  of  the  Lsestrygons, 
on  the  Midnight  Sun.  He  has  dwelt  on  the  floating  isle  of 
yEolus,  with  its  wall  of  bronze  unbroken,  and  has  sailed 
on  those  Phseacian  barks  that  need  no  help  of  helm  or 
oar,  that  fear  no  stress  either  of  wind  or  tide,  that  come 
and  go  and  return  obedient  to  a  thought  and  silent  as  a 
dream.  He  has  seen  the  four  maidens  of  Circe,  daughters 
of  wells  and  woods,  and  of  sacred  streams.  He  is  the 
second-sighted  man,  and  beholds  the  shroud  that  wraps 
the  living  who  are  doomed,  and  the  mystic  dripping  from 
the  walls  of  blood  yet  unshed.  He  has  walked  in  the  garden 
closes  of  Phseacia,  and  looked  on  the  face  of  gods  who  fare 
thither,  and  watch  flie  weaving  of  the  dance.  He  has 
eaten  the  honey-sweet  fruit  of  the  lotus,  and  from  the 
hand  of  Helen  he  brings  us  that  Egyptian  nepenthe  which 
puts  all  sorrow  out  of  mind.  His  real  world  is  as  real 
as  that  in  Henry  V.,  his  enchanted  isles  are  charmed 
with  the  magic  of  the  Tempest.  His  young  wooers 
are  as  insolent  as  Claudio,  as  flushed  with  youth  ;  his 
beggar-men  are  brethren  of  Edie  Ochiltree ;  his  Nausicaa  is 
sister  to  Rosalind,  with  a  different  charm  of  stately  purity 


HOMER  AND  THE  STUDY  OF  GREEK      329 

in  love.  His  enchantresses  hold  us  yet  with  their  sor- 
ceries ;  his  Helen  is  very  Beauty  :  she  has  all  the  sweetness 
of  ideal  womanhood,  and  her  repentance  is  without  re- 
morse. His  Achilles  is  youth  itself,  glorious,  cruel, 
pitiful,  splendid,  and  sad,  ardent  and  loving,  and  con- 
scious of  its  doom.  Homer,  in  truth,  is  to  be  matched 
only  with  Shakespeare,  and  of  Shakespeare  he  has  not  the 
occasional  wilfulness,  freakishness,  and  modish  obscurity. 
He  is  a  poet  all  of  gold,  universal  as  humanity,  simple 
as  childhood,  musical  now  as  the  flow  of  liis  own  rivers, 
now  as  the  heavy  plunging  wave  of  his  own  Ocean. 

Such,  then,  as  far  as  weak  words  can  speak  of  him,  is 
the  first  and  greatest  of  poets.  This  is  he  whom  English 
boys  are  to  be  ignorant  of,  if  Greek  be  ousted  from  our 
schools,  or  are  to  know  only  in  the  distorting  mirror  of  a 
versified,  or  in  the  pale  shadow  of  a  prose  translation. 
Translations  are  good  only  as  teachers  to  bring  men  to 
Homer.  English  verse  has  no  measure  which  even  re- 
motely suggests  the  various  flow  of  the  hexameter.  Trans- 
lators who  employ  verse  give  us  a  feeble  Homer,  dashed 
with  their  own  conceits,  and  moulded  to  their  own  style. 
Translators  who  employ  prose  "tell  the  story  without  the 
song,"  but,  at  least,  they  add  no  twopenny  "beauties" 
and  cheap  conceits  of  their  own. 

I  venture  to  offer  a  few  examples  of  original  translation, 
in  which  the  mannerisms  of  poets  who  have,  or  have  not, 
translated  Homer,  are  parodied,  and,  of  course  (except 
in  the  case  of  Pope),  exaggerated.  The  passage  is  the 
speech  of  the  Second-sighted  Man,  before  the  slaying  of 
the  wooers  in  the  hall :  — 

"Ah  !  wretched  men,  what  ill  is  this  ye  suffer  ?  In  night  are  swathed 
your  heads,  your  faces,  your  knees ;  and  the  voice  of  wailing  is  kindled, 
and  cheeks  are  wet  with  tears,  and  with  blood  drip  the  walls,  and  the 


330  MODERN  ESSAYS 

fair  main  beams  of  the  roof,  and  the  porch  is  full  of  shadows,  and  full  is 
the  courtyard,  of  ghosts  that  hasten  hellward  below  the  darkness,  and 
the  sun  has  perished  out  of  heaven,  and  an  evil  mist  sweeps  up  over  all." 

So  much  for  Homer.  The  first  attempt  at  metrical 
translation  here  given  is  meant  to  be  in  the  manner  of 
Pope : 

"Caitiffs!"  he  cried,  "what  heaven-directed  blight 
Involves  each  countenance  with  clouds  of  night ! 
What  pearly  drop  the  ashen  cheek  bedews ! 
Why  do  the  walls  with  gouts  ensanguined  ooze  ? 
The  court  is  thronged  with  ghosts  that  'neath  the  gloom 
Seek  Pluto's  realm,  and  Dis's  awful  doom ; 
In  ebon  curtains  Phoebus  hides  his  head. 
And  sable  mist  creeps  upward  from  the  dead." 

This  appears  pretty  bad,  and  nearly  as  un-Homeric  as  a 
translation  could  possibly  be.  But  Pope,  aided  by  Broome 
and  Fenton,  managed  to  be  much  less  Homeric,  much 
more  absurd,  and  infinitely  more  "classical"  in  the  sense 
in  which  Pope  is  classical : 

"O  race  to  death  devote !  with  Stygian  shade 
Each  destined  peer  impending  fates  invade; 
With  tears  your  wan  distorted  cheeks  are  drowned ; 
With  sanguine  drops  the  walls  are  rubied  round : 
Thick  swarms  the  spacious  hall  with  howling  ghosts, 
,  To  people  Orcus  and  the  burning  coasts  ! 

Nor  gives  the  sun  his  golden  orb  to  roll. 
But  universal  night  usurps  the  pole." 

Who  could  have  conjectured  that  even  Pope  would 
wander  away  so  far  from  his  matchless  original? 
"Wretches!"  cried  Theoclymenus,  the  seer;  and  that 
becomes,  "O  race  to  death  devote!"  "Your  heads  are 
swathed  in  night,"  turns  into  "With  Stygian  shade  each 
destined  peer"  (peer  is  good  !)  "impending  fates  invade," 
where  Homer  says  nothing  about  Styx  nor  peers.     The 


HOMER  AND  THE   STUDY  OF  GREEK      331 

Latin  Orcus  takes  the  place  of  Erebus,  and  "the  burning 
coasts"  are  derived  from  modern  popular  theology. 
The  very  grammar  detains  or  defies  the  reader;  is  it 
the  sun  that  does  not  give  his  golden  orb  to  roll,  or  who, 
or  what? 

The  only  place  where  the  latter-day  Broome  or  Fenton 
can  flatter  himself  that  he  rivals  Pope  at  his  own  game 
is  — 

"What  pearly  drop  the  ashen  cheek  bedews  !" 

This  is,  if  possible,  more  classical  than  Pope's  own  — 
"With  tears  your  wan  distorted  cheeks  are  drowned." 

But  Pope  nobly  revindicates  his  unparalleled  power  of 
translating  funnily,  when,  in  place  of  "the  walls  drip  with 
blood,"  he  writes  — 

"With  sanguine  drops  the  walls  are  rubied  round." 

Homer  does  not  appear  to  have  been  acquainted  with 
rubies  ;  but  what  of  that  ?  And  how  noble,  how  eminently 
worthy  of  Pope  it  is  to  add  that  the  ghosts  "howl"  !  I 
tried  to  make  them  gibber,  but  ghosts  do  gibber  in  Homer 
(thought  not  in  this  passage),  so  Pope,  Fenton,  Broome, 
and  Co.,  make  them  howl. 

No,  Pope  is  not  lightly  to  be  rivalled  by  a  modern  trans- 
lator. The  following  example,  a  far-off  following  of  a 
noted  contemporary  poet,  may  be  left  unsigned  — 

"Wretches,  the  bane  hath  befallen,  the  night  and  the  blight  of  your  sin 
Sweeps  like  a  shroud  o'er  the  faces  and  limbs  that  were  gladsome  therein ; 
And  the  dirge  of  the  dead  breaketh  forth,  and  the  faces  of  all  men  are 

wet. 
And  the  walls  are  besprinkled  with  blood,  and  the  ghosts  in  the  gateway 

are  met, 
Ghosts  in  the  court  and  the  gateway  are  gathered.  Hell  opens  her  lips. 
And  the  sun  in  his  splendour  is  shrouded,  and  sickens  in  spasm  of  eclipse." 


332  MODERN  ESSAYS 

The  next  is  longer  and  slower :  the  poet  has  a  difficulty 
in  telling  his  story : 

"Wretches,"  he  cried,  "what  doom  is  this?  what  night 
CHngs  like  a  face-cloth  to  the  face  of  each,  — 
Sweeps  like  a  shroud  o'er  knees  and  head  ?  for  lo ! 
The  windy  wail  of  death  is  up,  and  tears 
On  every  cheek  are  wet ;  each  shining  wall 
And  beauteous  interspace  of  beam  and  beam 
Weeps  tears  of  blood,  and  shadows  in  the  door 
Flicker,  and  fill  the  portals  and  the  court  — 
Shadows  of  men  that  hellwards  yearn  —  and  now 
The  sun  himself  hath  perished  out  of  heaven. 
And  all  the  land  is  darkened  with  a  mist." 

That  could  never  be  mistaken  for  a  version  by  the  Lau- 
reate, as  perhaps  any  contemporary  hack's  works  might 
have  been  taken  for  Pope's.  The  difficulty,  perhaps,  lies 
here :  any  one  knows  where  to  have  Pope,  any  one  knows 
that  he  will  evade  the  mot  propre,  though  the  precise 
evasion  he  may  select  is  hard  to  guess.  But  the  Laureate 
would  keep  close  to  his  text,  and  yet  would  write  like 
himself,  very  beautifully,  but  not  with  an  Homeric  swift- 
ness and  strength.  Who  is  to  imitate  him?  As  to  Mr. 
William  Morris,  he  might  be  fabled  to  render  'A  SeiAot 
"niddering  wights,"  but  beyond  that,  conjecture  is 
baffled.^     Or  is  this  the  kind  of  thing  ?  — 

"Niddering  wights,  wliat  a  bane  do  ye  bear,  for  your  knees  in  the  night. 
And  your  heads  and  your  faces,  are  shrouded,  and  clamour  that  knows 

not  delight 
Rings,  and  your  cheeks  are  begrutten,  and  blood  is  besprent  on  the 

walls. 
Blood  on  the  tapestry  fair  woven,  and  barrow-wights  walk  in  the  halls. 
Fetches  and  wraiths  of  the  chosen  of  the  Norns,  and  the  sun  from  the  lift 
Shudders,  and  over  the  midgarth  and  swan's  bath  the  cloud-shadows 

drift." 

'  Conjecture  may  cease,  as  Mr.  Morris  has  translated  the  Odyssey. 


HOMER  AND  THE   STUDY  OF  GREEK        333 

It  may  be  argued  that,  though  this  is  perhaps  a  transla- 
tion, it  is  not  English,  never  was,  and  never  will  be.  But 
it  is  quite  as  like  Homer  as  the  performance  of  Pope. 

Such  as  these,  or  not  so  very  much  better  than  these 
as  might  be  wished,  are  our  efforts  to  translate  Homer. 
From  Chapman  to  Avia,  or  Mr.  William  Morris,  they  are 
all  eminently  conscientious,  and  erroneous,  and  futile. 
Chapman  makes  Homer  a  fanciful,  euphuistic,  obscure, 
and  garrulous  Elizabethan,  but  Chapman  has  fire.  Pope 
makes  him  a  wit,  spirited,  occasionally  noble,  full  of 
points,  and  epigrams,  and  queer  rococo  conventionalisms. 
Cowper  makes  him  slow,  lumbering,  a  Milton  without  the 
music.     Maginn  makes  him  pipe  an  Irish  jig :  — 

"Scarcely  had  she  begun  to  wash 
When  she  was  aware  of  the  grisly  gash !" 

Lord  Derby  makes  him  respectable  and  ponderous. 
Lord  Tennyson  makes  him  not  less,  but  certainly  not 
more,  than  Tennysonian.  Homer,  in  the  Laureate's  few 
fragments  of  experiment,  is  still  a  poet,  but  he  is  not 
Homer.  Mr.  Morris,  and  Avia,  make  him  Icelandic, 
and  archaistic,  and  hard  to  scan,  though  vigorous  in  his 
fetters  for  all  that.  Bohn  makes  him  a  crib  ;  and  of  other 
translators  in  prose  it  has  been  said  with  a  humour  which 
one  of  them  appreciates,  that  they  render  Homer  into  a 
likeness  of  the  Book  of  Mormon. 

Homer  is  untranslatable.  None  of  us  can  bend  the 
bow  of  Eurytus,  and  make  the  bow-string  "ring  sweetly 
at  the  touch,  like  the  swallow's  song."  The  adventure 
is  never  to  be  achieved ;  and,  if  Greek  is  to  be  dismissed 
from  education,  not  the  least  of  the  sorrows  that  will 
ensue  is  English  ignorance  of  Homer, 


HOMER  AND  HUMBUG  ^ 

An  Academic  Discussion 

BY 

Stephen  Leacock 

Curiously  similar  in  treatment,  is  Mr.  Leacock's  essay,  as  compared 
with  Lang's,  but  utterly  different  in  content  and  in  style.  His  thought 
is  as  follows  :  although  he  has  had  the  advantage  of  a  classical  training,  he 
regards  it  as  useless ;  to  illustrate  this  uselessness,  he  writes  two  burlesque 
translations ;  his  conclusion  is  that  the  classics  are  only  primitive  litera- 
ture. Not  only  do  both  essayists  use  parodies  as  illustrations,  they  also 
illustrate  from  their  own  individual  experience.  But  whereas  Lang  is 
serious  and  a  trifle  heavy,  Mr.  Leacock  is  humorous  and  consciously 
popular.  If  Lang  limits  his  audience  by  his  pedantry,  does  not  Mr. 
Leacock  limit  his  by  his  obviousness  ?  Is  Mr.  Leacock's  attack  stronger 
than  Lang's  defense  ? 

The  following  discussion  is  of  course  only  of  interest  to 
scholars.  But,  as  the  public  schools  returns  show  that  in 
the  United  States  there  are  now  over  a  million  coloured 
scholars  alone,  the  appeal  is  wide  enough. 

I  do  not  mind  confessing  that  for  a  long  time  past  I  have 
been  very  sceptical  about  the  classics.  I  was  myself 
trained  as  a  classical  scholar.  It  seemed  the  only  thing 
to  do  with  me.  I  acquired  such  a  singular  facility  in 
handling  Latin  and  Greek  that  I  could  take  a  page  of 
either  of  them,  distinguish  which  it  was  by  merely  glancing 
at  it,  and,  with  the  help  of  a  dictionary  and  a  pair  of  com- 
passes, whip  off  a  translation  of  it  in  less  than  three  hours. 

1  From  "Behind  the  Beyond,"  by  permission  of  John  Lane  Co. 

334 


in\f  . 


HOMER  AND  HUMBUG  335 

But  I  never  got  any  pleasure  from  it.  I  lied  about  it. 
At  first,  perhaps,  I  lied  through  vanity.  Any  coloured 
scholar  will  understand  the  feeling.  Later  on  I  lied 
through  habit ;  later  still  because,  after  all,  the  classics 
were  all  that  I  had  and  so  I  valued  them.  I  have  seen 
thus  a  deceived  dog  value  a  puj)  with  a  broken  leg,  and  a 
pauper  child  nurse  a  dead  doll  with  the  sawdust  out  of  it. 
So  I  nursed  my  dead  Homer  and  my  broken  Demosthenes 
though  I  knew  in  my  heart  that  there  was  more  sawdust 
in  the  stomach  of  one  modern  author  than  in  the  whole 
lot  of  them.  Observe,  I  am  not  saying  which  it  is  that 
has  it  full  of  it. 

So,  as  I  say,  I  began  to  lie  about  the  classics.  I  said 
to  people  who  knew  no  Greek  that  there  was  a  sublimity, 
a  majesty  about  Homer  which  they  could  never  hope  to 
grasp.  I  said  it  was  like  the  sound  of  the  sea  beating 
against  the  granite  cliffs  of  the  Ionian  Esophagus  :  or 
words  to  that  effect.  As  for  the  truth  of  it,  I  might  as 
well  have  said  that  it  was  like  the  sound  of  a  rum  dis- 
tillery running  a  night  shift  on  half  time.  AX  any  rate 
this  is  what  I  said  about  Homer,  and  when  I  spoke  of 
Pindar,  —  the  dainty  grace  of  his  strophes,  —  and  Aris- 
tophanes, the  delicious  sallies  of  his  wit,  sally  after  sally, 
each  sally  explained  in  a  note  calling  it  a  sally  —  I  managed 
to  suffuse  my  face  with  an  animation  which  made  it  al-  ^ 
most  beautiful.  X^'^s^ 

I  admitted  of  course  that  Virgil  in  spite  of  his  genius  had 
a  hardness  and  a  cold  glitter  which  resembled  rather  the 
brilliance  of  a  cut  diamond  than  the  soft  grace  of  a  flower. 
Certainly  I  admitted  this :  the  mere  admission  of  it 
would  knock  the  breath  out  of  anyone  who  was  arguing. 

From  such  talks  my  friends  went  away  sad.  The  con- 
clusion was  too  cruel.     It  had   all  the  cold  logic  of  a 


336  MODERN  ESSAYS 

syllogism  (like  that  almost  brutal  form  of  argument  so 
ruucli  admired  in  the  Paraphernalia  of  Socrates).  For 
if:  — 

Virgil  and  Homer  and  Pindar  had  all  this  grace,  and  pith  and  these 

sallies,  — 
And  if  I  read  Virgil  and  Homer  and  Pindar, 
And  if  they  only  read  Mrs.  Wharton  and  Mrs.  Humphrey  Ward 
Then  where  were  they  ? 

So  continued  lying  brought  its  own  reward  in  the  sense 
of  superiority  and  I  lied  more. 

When  I  reflect  that  I  have  openly  expressed  regret,  as  a 
personal  matter,  even  in  the  presence  of  women,  for  the 
missing  books  of  Tacitus,  and  the  entire  loss  of  the  Abaca- 
dabra  of  Polyphemus  of  Syracuse,  I  can  find  no  words  in 
which  to  beg  for  pardon.  In  reality  I  was  just  as 
much  worried  over  the  loss  of  the  ichthyosaurus.  More, 
indeed  :  I'd  like  to  have  seen  it :  but  if  the  books  Tacitus 
lost  were  like  those  he  didn't,  I  wouldn't. 

I  believe  all  scholars  lie  like  this.  An  ancient  friend 
of  mine,  a  clergyman,  tells  me  that  in  Hesiod  he  finds  a 
peculiar  grace  that  he  doesn't  find  elsewhere.  He's  a 
liar.  That's  all.  Another  man,  in  politics  and  in  the 
legislature,  tells  me  that  every  night  before  going  to  bed 
he  reads  over  a  page  or  two  of  Thucydides  to  keep  his 
mind  fresh.  Either  he  never  goes  to  bed  or  he's  a  liar. 
Doubly  so  :  no  one  could  read  Greek  at  that  frantic  rate  : 
and  anyway  his  mind  isn't  fresh.  How  could  it  be,  he's 
in  the  legislature.  I  don't  object  to  this  man  talking 
freely  of  the  classics,  but  he  ought  to  keep  it  for  the  voters. 
My  own  opinion  is  that  before  he  goes  to  bed  he  takes 
whiskey  :    why  call  it  Thucydides  ? 

I  know  there  are  solid  arguments  advanced  in  favour  of 
the  classics.     I  often  hear  them  from  my  colleagues.     My 


HOMER  AND  HUMBUG  337 

friend  the  professor  of  Greek  tells  me  that  he  truly  be- 
lieves the  classics  have  made  him  what  he  is.  This  is  a 
very  grave  statement,  if  well  founded.  Indeed  I  have 
heard  the  same  argument  from  a  great  many  Latin  and 
Greek  scholars.  They  all  claim,  with  some  heat,  that  Latin 
and  Greek  have  practically  made  them  what  they  are. 
This  damaging  charge  against  the  classics  should  not  be 
too  readily  accepted.  In  my  opinion  some  of  these  men 
would  have  been  what  they  are,  no  matter  what  they  were. 

Be  this  as  it  may,  I  for  my  part  bitterly  regret  the  lies 
I  have  told  about  my  appreciation  of  Latin  and  Greek 
literature.  I  am  anxious  to  do  what  I  can  to  set  things 
right.  I  am  therefore  engaged  on,  indeed  have  nearly 
completed,  a  work  which  will  enable  all  readers  to  judge 
the  matter  for  themselves.  What  I  have  done  is  a  trans- 
lation of  all  the  great  classics,  not  in  the  usual  literal  way 
but-  on  a  design  that  brings  them  into  harmony  with 
modern  life.     I  will  explain  what  I  mean  in  a  minute. 

The  translation  is  intended  to  be  within  reach  of  every- 
body. It  is  so  designed  that  the  entire  set  of  volumes  can 
go  on  a  shelf  twenty-seven  feet  long,  or  even  longer.  The 
first  edition  will  be  an  edition  de  luxe  bound  in  vellum, 
or  perhaps  in  buckskin,  and  sold  at  five  hundred  dollars. 
It  will  be  limited  to  five  hundred  copies  and,  of  course, 
sold  only  to  the  feeble  minded.  The  next  edition  will  be 
the  Literary  Edition,  sold  to  artists,  authors,  actors,  and 
contractors.  After  that  will  come  the  Boarding  House 
Edition,  bound  in  board  and  paid  for  in  the  same  way. 

My  plan  is  to  so  transpose  the  classical  writers  as  to 
give,  not  the  literal  translation  word  for  word,  but  what  is 
really  the  modern  equivalent.  Let  me  give  an  odd  sample 
or  two  to  show  what  I  mean.  Take  the  passage  in  the 
First  Book  of  Homer  that  describes  Ajax  the  Greek  dashing 
z 


338  MODERN  ESSAYS 

into  the  battle  in  front  of  Troy.  Here  is  the  way  it  runs 
(as  nearly  as  I  remember),  in  the  usual  word  for  word 
translation  of  the  classroom,  as  done  by  the  very  best 
j)rofessor,  his  spectacles  glittering  with  the  literary  rapture 
of  it. 

"Then  he  too  Ajax  on  the  one  hand  leaped  (or  possibly  jumped) 
into  the  fight  wearing  on  the  other  hand,  yes  certainly  a  steel  corselet 
(or  possibly  a  bronze  under  tunic)  and  on  his  head  of  course,  yes  without 
doubt  he  had  a  helmet  with  a  tossing  plume  taken  from  the  mane  (or 
perhaps  extracted  from  the  tail)  of  some  horse  which  once  fed  along  the 
banks  of  the  Scamander  (and  it  sees  the  herd  and  raises  its  head  and 
paws  the  ground)  and  in  his  hand  a  shield  worth  a  hundred  oxen  and  on 
his  knees  too  especially  in  particular  greaves  made  by  some  cunning 
artificer  (or  perhaps  blacksmith)  and  he  blows  the  fire  and  it  is  hot. 
Thus  Ajax  leapt  (or,  better,  was  propelled  from  behind),  into  the  fight." 

Now  that's  grand  stuff.  There  is  no  doubt  of  it. 
There's  a  wonderful  movement  and  force  to  it.  You 
can  almost  see  it  move,  it  goes  so  fast.  But  the  modern 
reader  can't  get  it.  It  won't  mean  to  him  what  it  meant 
to  the  early  Greek.  The  setting,  the  costume,  the  scene 
has  all  got  to  be  changed  in  order  to  let  the  reader  have  a 
real  equivalent  to  judge  just  how  good  the  Greek  verse  is. 
In  my  translation  I  alter  it  just  a  little,  not  much  but  just 
enough  to  give  the  passage  a  form  that  reproduces  the 
proper  literary  value  of  the  verses,  without  losing  anything 
of  the  majesty.  It  describes,  I  may  say,  the  Directors  of 
the  American  Industrial  Stocks  rushing  into  the  Balkan 
War  Cloud.  — 

Then  there  came  rushing  to  the  shock  of  war 
Mr.  McNicoll  of  the  C.  P.  R. 

He  wore  suspenders  and  about  his  throat 

High  rose  the  collar  of  a  sealskin  coat. 

He  had  on  gaiters  and  he  wore  a  tie, 

He  had  his  trousers  buttoned  good  and  high ; 


HOMER  AND  HUMBUG  339 

About  his  waist  a  woollen  undervest 
Bought  from  a  sad-eyed  farmer  of  the  West. 
(And  every  time  he  clips  a  sheep  he  sees 
Some  bloated  plutocrat  who  ought  to  freeze). 
Thus  in  the  Stock  Exchange  he  burst  to  view, 
Leaped  to  the  post,  and  shouted,  "Ninety-two!" 

There  !  That's  Homer,  the  real  thing  !  Just  as  it  sounded 
to  the  rude  crowd  of  Greek  peasants  who  sat  in  a  ring 
and  guffawed  at  the  rhymes  and  watched  the  minstrel 
stamp  it  out  into  "feet"  as  he  recited  it ! 

Or  let  me  take  another  example  from  the  so-called  Cata- 
logue of  the  Ships  that  fills  up  nearly  an  entire  book  of 
Homer.  This  famous  passage  names  all  the  ships,  one  by 
one,  and  names  the  chiefs  who  sailed  on  them,  and  names 
the  particular  town  or  hill  or  valley  that  they  came  from. 
It  has  been  much  admired.  It  has  that  same  majesty  of 
style  that  has  been  brought  to  an  even  loftier  pitch  in 
the  New  York  Business  Directory  and  the  Cfty  Telephone 
Book.     It  runs  along,  as  I  recall  it,  something  like  this,  — 

"And  first,  indeed,  oh  yes,  was  the  ship  of  Homistogetes  the  Spartan, 
long  and  swift,  having  both  its  masts  covered  with  cowhide  and  two" 
rows  of  oars.  And  he,  Homistogetes,  was  born  of  Hermogenes  and 
Ophthalmia  and  was  at  home  in  Syncope  beside  the  fast  flowing  Paresis. 
And  after  him  came  the  ship  of  Preposterus  the  Eurasian,  son  of  Oasis 
and  Hysteria,"  .  .  . 

and  so  on  endlessly. 

Instead  of  this  I  substitute,  with  the  permission  of  the 
New  York  Central  Railway,  the  official  catalogue  of  their 
locomotives  taken  almost  word  for  word  from  the  list 
compiled  by  their  superintendent  of  works.  I  admit  that 
he  wrote  in  hot  weather.     Part  of  it  runs  :  — 

Out  in  the  yard  and  steaming  in  the  sun 
Stands  locomotive  engine  number  forty-one ; 
Seated  beside  the  windows  of  the  cab 
G 


340  MODERN  ESSAYS 

Are  Pat  McGaw  and  Peter  James  McNab. 
Pat  comes  from  Troy  and  Peter  from  Cohoes, 
And  when  they  pull  the  throttle  off  she  goes ; 
And  as  she  vanishes  there  comes  to  view 
Steam  locomotive  engine  number  forty-two. 
Observe  her  mighty  wheels,  her  easy  roll. 
With  William  J.  Macarthy  in  control. 
They  say  her  engineer  some  time  ago 
Lived  on  a  farm  outside  of  Buffalo 
Whereas  his  fireman,  Henry  Edward  Foy, 
Attended  School  in  Springfield,  Illinois. 
Thus  does  the  race  of  man  decay  or  rot  — 
Some  men  can  hold  their  jobs  and  some  can  not. 

Please  observe  that  if  Homer  had  actually  written  that 
last  line  it  would  have  been  quoted  for  a  thousand  years 
as  one  of  the  deepest  sayings  ever  said.  Orators  would 
have  rounded  out  their  speeches  with  the  majestic  phrase, 
quoted  in  sonorous  and  unintelligible  Greek  verse,  "some 
men  can  hold  their  jobs  and  some  can  not":  essayists 
would  have  begun  their  most  scholarly  dissertations  with 
the  words,  —  "It  has  been  finely  said  by  Homer  that  (in 
Greek)  'some  men  can  hold  their  jobs'"  :  and  the  clergy 
in  mid-pathos  of  a  funeral  sermon  would  have  raised  their 
eyes  aloft  and  echoed  "Some  men  can  not"  ! 

This  is  what  I  should  like  to  do.  I'd  like  to  take  a  large 
stone  and  write  on  it  in  very  plain  writing,  — 

"The  classics  are  only  primitive  literature.  They 
belong  in  the  same  class  as  primitive  machinery  and  primi- 
tive music  and  primitive  medicine,"  —  and  then  throw 
it  through  the  windows  of  a  University  and  hide  behind 
a  fence  to  see  the  professors  buzz  ! ! 


ON  THE   CASE   OF    A   CERTAIN   MAN  WHO   IS 
NEVER  THOUGHT  OF^ 

BY 

William  Graham  Sumner 

This  brilliant  essay  by  Professor  Sumner  illustrates  the  effective  use 
of  the  deductive  structure.  In  two  paragraphs  defining  who  is  the  For- 
gotten Man,  the  general  principle  is  stated  so  fully  that  the  reader  un- 
consciously accepts  it.  But  once  the  reader  has  accepted  this  principle, 
it  is  applied  to  the  consideration  of  trades  unions  and  temperance 
legislation,  with  startling  results.  The  essay,  then,  consists  in  the 
statement  of  a  general  principle,  followed  by  two  illustrations.  Just 
as  the  form  resolves  itself  into  a  simple  arrangement,  so  the  style  is 
simple.  There  is  no  attempt  at  rhetorical  exaggeration,  no  appeal  to 
the  emotions.  It  does  read,  and  it  is  intended  to  read,  as  an  ordinary 
exercise  of  the  logical  faculty.  This  mathematical  effect  is  gained  by 
the  device  of  using  the  A  and  B  that  are  associated  in  the  mind  with 
school  problems.  And  the  brilliance  of  the  essay  lies  in  the  apparent 
inevitability  with  which  the  author  reaches  conclusions  widely  differing 
from  conventional  views.  Since  the  importance  of  the  essay  lies  exactly 
in  these  applications,  actually  the  structure  approaches  the  deductive 
type. 

The  type  and  formula  of  most  schemes  of  philanthropy 
or  humanitarianism  is  this  :  A  and  B  put  their  heads 
together  to  decide  what  C  shall  be  made  to  do  for  D, 
The  radical  vice  of  all  these  schemes,  from  a  sociological 
point  of  view,  is  that  C  is  not  allowed  a  voice  in  the  matter, 

1  From  "What  Social  Classes  Owe  to  Each  Other."  Copyright,  1883, 
by  Harper  and  Brothers.  Copyright,  1911,  by  Jeannie  W.  Sumner. 
Also  by  permission  of  the  Sumner  Estate  and  of  The  Yale  University  Press. 

341 


342  MODERN  ESSAYS 

and  his  position,  character,  and  interests,  as  well  as  the 
ultimate  effects  on  society  through  C's  interests,  are 
entirely  overlooked.  I  call  C  the  Forgotten  Man.  For 
once  let  us  look  him  up  and  consider  his  case,  for  the 
characteristic  of  all  social  doctors  is,  that  they  fix  their 
minds  on  some  man  or  group  of  men  whose  case  appeals 
to  the  sympathies  and  the  imagination,  and  they  plan 
remedies  addressed  to  the  particular  trouble ;  they  do  not 
understand  that  all  the  parts  of  society  hold  together,  and 
that  forces  which  are  set  in  action  act  and  react  throughout 
the  whole  organism,  until  an  equilibrium  is  produced  by  a 
re-adjustment  of  all  interests  and  rights.  They  therefore 
ignore  entirely  the  source  from  which  they  must  draw  all 
the  energy  which  they  employ  in  their  remedies,  and  they 
ignore  all  the  effects  on  other  members  of  society  than  the 
ones  they  have  in  view.  They  are  always  under  the 
dominion  of  the  superstition  of  government,  and,  for- 
getting that  a  government  produces  nothing  at  all,  they 
leave  out  of  sight  the  first  fact  to  be  remembered  in  all 
social  discussion  —  that  the  State  cannot  get  a  cent  for 
any  man  without  taking  it  from  some  other  man,  and 
this  latter  must  be  a  man  who  has  produced  and  saved  it. 
This  latter  is  the  Forgotten  Man. 

The  friends  of  humanity  start  out  with  certain  benevo- 
lent feelings  toward  "the  poor,"  "the  weak,"  "the 
laborers,"  and  others  of  whom  they  make  pets.  They 
generalize  these  classes,  and  render  them  impersonal,  and 
so  constitute  the  classes  into  social  pets.  They  turn  to 
other  classes  and  appeal  to  sympathy  and  generosity, 
and  to  all  the  other  noble  sentiments  of  the  human  heart. 
Action  in  the  line  proposed  consists  in  a  transfer  of  capi- 
tal from  the  better  off  to  the  worse  off.  Capital,  how- 
ever, as  we  have  seen,  is  the  force  by  which  civilization 


THE  CASE  OF  A  CERTAIN  MAN  343 

is  maintained  and  carried  on.  The  same  piece  of  capital 
cannot  be  used  in  two  ways.  Every  bit  of  capital,  there- 
fore, which  is  given  to  a  shiftless  and  inefficient  member 
of  society,  who  makes  no  return  for  it,  is  diverted  from  a 
reproductive  use ;  but  if  it  was  put  to  reproductive  use,  it 
would  have  to  be  granted  in  wages  to  an  efficient  and 
productive  laborer.  Hence  the  real  sufferer  by  that  kind 
of  benevolence  which  consists  in  an  expenditure  of  capital 
to  protect  the  good-for-nothing  is  the  industrious  laborer. 
The  latter,  however,  is  never  thought  of  in  this  connection. 
It  is  assumed  that  he  is  provided  for  and  out  of  the  account. 
Such  a  notion  only  shows  how  little  true  notions  of  political 
economy  have  as  yet  become  popularized.  There  is  an 
almost  invincible  prejudice  that  a  man  who  gives  a  dollar 
to  a  beggar  is  generous  and  kind-hearted,  but  that  a 
man  who  refuses  the  beggar  and  puts  the  dollar  in  a 
savings  bank  is  stingy  and  mean.  The  former  is  putting 
capital  where  it  is  very  sure  to  be  wasted,  and  where  it 
will  be  a  kind  of  seed  for  a  long  succession  of  future  dollars, 
which  must  be  wasted  to  ward  off  a  greater  strain  on  the 
sympathies  than  would  have  been  occasioned  by  a  refusal 
in  the  first  place.  Inasmuch  as  the  dollar  might  have 
been  turned  into  capital  and  given  to  a  laborer  who,  while 
earning  it,  would  have  reproduced  it,  it  must  be  regarded 
as  taken  from  the  latter.  When  a  millionnaire  gives  a 
dollar  to  a  beggar  the  gain  of  utility  to  the  beggar  is  enor- 
mous, and  the  loss  of  utility  to  the  millionnaire  is  insig- 
nificant. Generally  the  discussion  is  allowed  to  rest  there. 
But  if  the  millionnaire  makes  capital  of  the  dollar,  it 
must  go  upon  the  labor  market,  as  a  demand  for  pro- 
ductive services.  Hence  there  is  another  party  in  in- 
terest —  the  person  who  supplies  productive  services. 
There  always  are  two  parties.     The  second  one  is  always 


344  MODERN  ESSAYS 

the  Forgotten  Man,  and  any  one  who  wants  to  truly 
understand  the  matter  in  question  must  go  and  search 
for  the  Forgotten  Man.  He  will  be  found  to  be  worthy, 
industrious,  independent,  and  self-supporting.  He  is  not, 
technically,  "poor"  or  "weak";  he  minds  his  own  busi- 
ness, and  makes  no  complaint.  Consequently  the  philan- 
thropists never  think  of  him,  and  trample  on  him. 

We  hear  a  great  deal  of  schemes  for  "improving  the 
condition  of  the  working-man."  In  the  United  States 
the  farther  down  we  go  in  the  grade  of  labor,  the  greater 
is  the  advantage  which  the  laborer  has  over  the  higher 
classes.  A  hod-carrier  or  digger  here  can,  by  one  day's 
labor,  command  many  times  more  days'  labor  of  a  car- 
penter, surveyor,  book-keeper,  or  doctor  than  an  unskilled 
laborer  in  Europe  could  command  by  one  day's  labor. 
The  same  is  true,  in  a  less  degree,  of  the  carpenter,  as 
compared  with  the  book-keeper,  surveyor,  and  doctor. 
This  is  why  the  United  States  is  the  great  country  for 
the  unskilled  laborer.  The  economic  conditions  all  favor 
that  class.  There  is  a  great  continent  to  be  subdued,  and 
there  is  a  fertile  soil  available  to  labor,  with  scarcely  any 
need  of  capital.  Hence  the  people  who  have  the  strong 
arms  have  what  is  most  needed,  and,  if  it  were  not  for 
social  consideration,  higher  education  would  not  pay. 
Such  being  the  case,  the  working-man  needs  no  improve- 
ment in  his  condition  except  to  be  freed  from  the  parasites 
who  are  living  on  him.  All  schemes  for  patronizing  "the 
working  classes"  savor  of  condescension.  They  are 
impertinent  and  out  of  place  in  this  free  democracy. 
There  is  not,  in  fact,  any  such  state  of  things  or  any  such 
relation  as  would  make  projects  of  this  kind  appropriate. 
Such  projects  demoralize  both  parties,  flattering  the  vanity 
of  one  and  undermining  the  self-respect  of  the  other. 


THE  CASE  OF  A  CERTAIN  MAN  345 

For  our  present  purpose  it  is  most  important  to  notice 
that  if  we  lift  any  man  up  we  must  have  a  fulcrum,  or 
point  of  reaction.  In  society  that  means  that  to  lift 
one  man  up  we  push  another  down.  The  schemes  for 
improving  the  condition  of  the  working  classes  interfere 
in  the  competition  of  workmen  with  each  other.  The 
beneficiaries  are  selected  by  favoritism,  and  are  apt  to  be 
those  who  have  recommended  themselves  to  the  friends  of 
humanity  by  language  or  conduct  which  does  not  betoken 
independence  and  energy.  Those  who  suffer  a  corre- 
sponding depression  by  the  interference  are  the  independent 
and  self-reliant,  who  once  more  are  forgotten  or  passed 
over ;  and  the  friends  of  humanity  once  more  appear,  in 
their  zeal  to  help  somebody,  to  be  trampling  on  those  who 
are  trying  to  help  themselves. 

Trades-unions  adopt  various  devices  for  raising  wages, 
and  those  who  give  their  time  to  philanthropy  are  in- 
terested in  these  devices,  and  wish  them  success.  They 
fix  their  minds  entirely  on  the  workmen  for  the  time  being 
in  the  trade,  and  do  not  take  note  of  any  other  workmen 
as  interested  in  the  matter.  It  is  supposed  that  the  fight 
is  between  the  workmen  and  their  employers,  and  it  is 
believed  that  one  can  give  sympathy  in  that  contest  to 
the  workmen  without  feeling  responsibility  for  anything 
farther.  It  is  soon  seen,  however,  that  the  employer  adds 
the  trades-union  and  strike  risk  to  the  other  risks  of 
his  business,  and  settles  down  to  it  philosophically.  If, 
now,  we  go  farther,  we  see  that  he  takes  it  philosophically 
because  he  has  passed  the  loss  along  on  the  public.  It 
then  appears  that  the  public  wealth  has  been  diminished, 
and  that  the  danger  of  a  trade  war,  like  the  danger  of 
a  revolution,  is  a  constant  reduction  of  the  well-being  of 
all.     So  far,  however,  we  have  seen  only  things  which 


346  MODERN  ESSAYS 

could  lorcer  wages  —  nothing  which  could  raise  them.  The 
employer  is  worried,  but  that  does  not  raise  wages.  The 
public  loses,  but  the  loss  goes  to  cover  extra  risk,  and  that 
does  not  raise  wages. 

A  trades-union  raises  wages  (aside  from  the  legitimate 
and  economic  means  noticed  in  Chapter  VI)  by  restricting 
the  number  of  apprentices  who  may  be  taken  into  the 
trade.  This  device  acts  directly  on  the  supply  of  laborers, 
and  that  produces  effects  on  wages.  If,  however,  the 
number  of  apprentices  is  limited,  some  are  kept  out  who 
want  to  get  in.  Those  who  are  in  have,  therefore,  made  a 
monopoly,  and  constituted  themselves  a  privileged  class 
on  a  basis  exactly  analogous  to  that  of  the  old  privileged 
aristocracies.  But  whatever  is  gained  by  this  arrangement 
for  those  who  are  in  is  won  at  a  greater  loss  to  those  who 
are  kept  out.  Hence  it  is  not  upon  the  masters  nor  upon 
the  public  that  trades-unions  exert  the  pressure  by  which 
they  raise  wages ;  it  is  upon  other  persons  of  the  labor 
class  who  want  to  get  into  the  trades,  but,  not  being  able 
to  do  so,  are  pushed  down  into  the  unskilled  labor  class. 
These  persons,  however,  are  passed  by  entirely  without 
notice  in  all  the  discussions  about  trades-unions.  They 
are  the  Forgotten  Men.  But,  since  they  want  to  get  into 
the  trade  and  win  their  living  in  it,  it  is  fair  to  suppose 
that  they  are  fit  for  it,  would  succeed  at  it,  would  do  well 
for  themselves  and  society  in  it ;  that  is  to  say,  that,  of  all 
persons  interested  or  concerned,  they  most  deserve  our 
sympathy  and  attention. 

The  cases  already  mentioned  involve  no  legislation. 
Society,  however,  maintains  police,  sheriffs,  and  various 
institutions,  the  object  of  which  is  to  protect  people 
against  themselves  —  that  is,  against  their  own  vices. 
Almost  all  legislative  effort  to  prevent  vice  is  really  pro- 


THE  CASE  OF  A  CERTAIN  MAN  347 

tective  of  vice,  because  all  such  legislation  saves  the 
vicious  man  from  the  penalty  of  his  vice.  Nature's 
remedies  against  vice  are  terrible.  She  removes  the  vic- 
tims without  pity.  A  drunkard  in  the  gutter  is  just  where 
he  ought  to  be,  according  to  the  fitness  and  tendency  of 
things.  Nature  has  set  up  on  him  the  process  of  decline 
and  dissolution  by  which  she  removes  things  which  have 
survived  their  usefulness.  Gambling  and  other  less 
mentionable  vices  carry  their  own  penalties  with  them. 

Now,  we  never  can  annihilate  a  penalty.  We  can  only 
divert  it  from  the  head  of  the  man  who  has  incurred  it 
to  the  heads  of  others  who  have  not  incurred  it.  A  vast 
amount  of  "social  reform"  consists  in  just  this  operation. 
The  consequence  is  that  those  who  have  gone  astray, 
being  relieved  from  Nature's  fierce  discipline,  go  on 
to  worse,  and  that  there  is  a  constantly  heavier  burden 
for  the  others  to  bear.  Who  are  the  others  .-^  When 
we  see  a  drunkard  in  the  gutter  we  pity  him. 
If  a  policeman  picks  him  up,  we  say  that  society 
has  interfered  to  save  him  from  perishing.  "Society" 
is  a  fine  word,  and  it  saves  us  the  trouble  of  thinking. 
The  industrious  and  sober  workman,  who  is  mulcted  of  a 
percentage  of  his  day's  wages  to  pay  the  policeman,  is 
the  one  who  bears  the  penalty.  But  he  is  the  Forgotten 
Man.  He  passes  by  and  is  never  noticed,  because  he  has 
behaved  himself,  fulfilled  his  contracts,  and  asked  for 
nothing. 

The  fallacy  of  all  prohibitory,  sumptuary,  and  moral 
legislation  is  the  same.  A  and  B  determine  to  be  tee- 
totalers, which  is  often  a  wise  determination,  and  some- 
times a  necessary  one.  If  A  and  B  are  moved  by  con- 
siderations which  seem  to  them  good,  that  is  enough. 
But  A  and  B  put  their  heads  together  to  get  a  law  passed 


348  MODERN  ESSAYS 

which  shall  force  C  to  be  a  teetotaler  for  the  sake  of  D, 
who  is  in  danger  of  drinking  too  much.  There  is  no  pres- 
sure on  A  and  B.  They  are  having  their  own  way,  and 
they  like  it.  There  is  rarely  any  pressure  on  D.  He 
does  not  like  it,  and  evades  it.  The  pressure  all  conies  on 
C.  The  question  then  arises,  Who  is  C  ?  He  is  the  man 
who  wants  alcoholic  liquors  for  any  honest  purpose  what- 
soever, who  would  use  his  liberty  without  abusing  it, 
who  would  occasion  no  public  question,  and  trouble 
nobody  at  all.  He  is  the  Forgotten  Man  again,  and  as 
soon  as  he  is  drawn  from  his  obscurity  we  see  that  he  is  just 
what  each  one  of  us  ought  to  be. 


THE   TRAINING  OF  INTELLECT  ^ 

BY 

WooDROw  Wilson 

(From  a  Stenographic  Report) 

In  any  work  it  is  the  thought  that  is  important.  The  attention  of  the 
student  should  be  directed  to  the  ordering  of  that  thought.  That  this  is 
true,  not  only  of  the  written  essay,  but  also  of  the  spoken  word,  is  illus- 
trated by  the  following  speech  made  by  President  Wilson,  then  President 
of  Princeton  University,  before  the  Phi  Beta  Kappa  Society  at  Yale. 
As  the  speech  is  taken  avowedly  from  stenographic  reports,  the  para- 
graphing, as  pertaining  to  the  stenographer  rather  than  to  President 
Wilson,  may  be  disregarded.  He  opens,  then,  with  a  section  purely 
introductory,  conforming  to  the  accepted  type  of  after-dinner  speech. 
Then  follows  the  statement  of  the  general  principle  that  the  function 
of  a  university  is  to  train  the  intellect.  This  is  expanded  and  fully  illus- 
trated until  the  audience  accepts  it.  Then,  as  in  case  of  Professor 
Sumner,  the  principle  is  applied  in  a  number  of  cases,  almost  illustra- 
tions. In  which  there  is  the  greatest  room  for  dissension.  He  closes 
with  an  assertion  of  the  principle.  In  form,  therefore,  it  is  very  similar 
to  the  preceding  essay  by  Professor  Sumner.  As  such  it  shows  the  range 
and  vividness  of  appeal  of  such  a  type. 

Mr.  Toastmaster,  Mr.  President,  and  Gentlemen  : 
—  I  certainly  considered  it  a  compliment  to  myself  when 
Mr.  Phelps  made  the  comparison  he  made  a  few  moments 
ago,  but  it  was  hardly  a  compliment  to  Princeton. 

I  do  not  feel  that  in  coming  to  Yale  I  am  coming  among 
strangers.     I  believe  that  a  man  who  is  accustomed  to 

'  From  The  Yale  Alumni  Weekly  for  March  25,  1908,  by  permis- 
sion of  the  editor. 

349 


350  MODERN  ESSAYS 

living  among  college  men  finds  everywhere  the  same  spirit, 
the  same  atmosphere.  I  feel  toward  you  as  a  friend  of 
mine  felt  toward  an  acquaintance  who  slapped  him  on  the 
back  familiarly.  He  looked  at  the  fellow  coldly  and  said, 
"I  do  not  know  your  name,  but  your  manners  are  very 
familiar."  And  so  I  feel  with  regard  to  every  college 
gathering  that  their  manners  are  familiar,  but  I  also  feel 
that  there  is  a  quickness  of  mutual  comprehension  that  is 
very  reassuring  to  a  speaker.  And  then  I  feel  particularly 
at  ease  in  appearing  before  a  strange  audience  because 
they  have  not  heard  my  stories,  and,  moreover,  because  it 
is  not  so  difficult  to  maintain  a  boast  of  dignity  where 
you  are  not  known  as  it  is  where  you  are  known.  When 
I  appear  before  a  Princeton  crowd  and  try  to  live  up 
to  an  introduction,  I  feel  like  the  old  woman  who  went 
into  the  side  show  at  the  circus  and  saw  a  man  reading  a 
newspaper  through  a  two-inch  board.  "Let  me  out  of 
this  place,"  she  exclaimed,  "this  is  no  place  for  me  to  be 
with  these  thin  things  on."  I  have  an  uncomfortable 
feeling  in  such  circumstances  that  the  disguise  is  trans- 
parent, but  perhaps  I  can  maintain  a  disguise  for  a  little 
while  among  you. 

I  must  confess  to  you  that  I  came  here  with  very  serious 
thoughts  this  evening,  because  I  have  been  laboring 
under  the  conviction  for  a  long  time  that  the  object  of  a 
university  is  to  educate,  and  I  have  not  seen  the  universi- 
ties of  this  country  achieving  any  remarkable  or  disturb- 
ing success  in  that  direction.  I  have  found  everywhere 
the  note  which  I  must  say  I  have  heard  sounded  once  or 
twice  to-night  —  that  apology  for  the  intellectual  side  of 
the  university.  You  hear  it  at  all  universities.  Learning 
is  on  the  defensive,  is  actually  on  the  defensive,  among 
college  men,  and  they  are  being  asked  by  way  of  indulgence 


THE  TRAINING  OF  INTELLECT  351 

to  bring  that  also  into  the  circle  of  their  interests.  Is  it 
not  time  we  stopped  asking  indulgence  for  learning  and 
proclaimed  its  sovereignty?  Is  it  not  time  we  reminded 
the  college  men  of  this  country  that  they  have  no  right 
to  any  distinctive  place  in  any  community,  unless  they 
can  show  it  by  intellectual  achievement  ?  that  if  a 
university  is  a  place  for  distinction  at  all  it  must  be  dis- 
tinguished by  the  conquests  of  the  mind  ?  I  for  my  part 
tell  you  plainly  that  that  is  my  motto,  that  I  have 
entered  the  field  to  fight  for  that  thesis,  and  that  for  that 
thesis  only  do  I  care  to  fight. 

The  toastmaster  of  the  evening  said,  and  said  truly,  that 
this  is  the  season  when,  for  me,  it  was  most  difiicult  to 
break  away  from  regular  engagements  in  which  I  am  in- 
volved at  this  time  of  the  year.  But  when  I  was  invited  to 
the  Phi  Beta  Kappa  banquet  it  had  an  unusual  sound, 
and  I  felt  that  that  was  the  particular  kind  of  invitation 
which  it  was  my  duty  and  privilege  to  accept,  v  One  of 
the  problems  of  the  American  university  now  is  how, 
among  a  great  many  other  competing  interests,  to  give 
places  of  distinction  to  men  who  want  places  of  distinction 
in  the  classroom.  Why  don't  we  give  you  men  the  Y 
here  and  the  P  at  Princeton,  because  after  all  you  have 
done  the  particular  thing  which  distinguishes  Yale? 
Not  that  these  other  things  are  not  worth  doing,  but  they 
may  be  done  anywhere.  They  may  be  done  in  athletic 
clubs  where  there  is  no  study,  but  this  thing  can  be  done 
only  here.     This  is  the  distinctive  mark  of  the  place. 

A  good  many  years  ago,  just  two  weeks  before  the  mid- 
year examinations,  the  Faculty  of  Princeton  was  foolish 
enough  to  permit  a  very  unwise  evangelist  to  come  to  the 
place  and  to  upset  the  town.  And  while  an  assisting 
undergraduate  was  going  from  room  to  room  one  under- 


^ 


352  MODERN  ESSAYS 

graduate  secured  his  door  and  put  this  notice  out,  "I  am  a 
Christian  and  am  studying  for  examinations."  Now  I 
want  to  say  that  that  is  exactly  what  a  Christian  under- 
graduate would  be  doing  at  that  time  of  the  year.  He 
would  not  be  attending  religious  meetings  no  matter 
how  beneficial  it  would  be  to  him.  He  would  be  studying 
for  examinations  not  merely  for  the  purpose  of  passing 
them,  but  from  his  sense  of  duty. 

We  get  a  good  many  men  at  Princeton  from  certain 
secondary  schools  who  say  a  great  deal  about  their  earnest 
desire  to  cultivate  character  among  our  students,  and  I 
hear  a  great  deal  about  character  being  the  object  of  edu- 
cation. I  take  leave  to  believe  that  a  man  who  cultivates 
his  character  consciously  will  cultivate  nothing  except 
what  will  make  him  intolerable  to  his  fellow  men.  If 
your  object  in  life  is  to  make  a  fine  fellow  of  yourself, 
you  will  not  succeed,  and  you  will  not  be  acceptable  to 
really  fine  fellows.  Character,  gentlemen,  is  a  by-product. 
It  comes,  whether  you  will  or  not,  as  a  consequence  of  a 
life  devoted  to  the  nearest  duty,  and  the  place  in  which 
character  would  be  cultivated,  if  it  be  a  place  of  study,  is  a 
place  where  study  is  the  object  and  character  the  results. 

Not  long  ago  a  gentleman  approached  me  in  great 
excitement  just  after  the  entrance  examinations.  He  said 
we  had  made  a  great  mistake  in  not  taking  so  and  so  from 
a  certain  school  which  he  named.  "But,"  I  said,  "he  did 
not  pass  the  entrance  examinations."  And  he  went  over 
the  boy's  moral  excellencies  again.  "Pardon  me,"  I 
said,  "you  do  not  understand.  He  did  not  pass  the  en- 
trance examinations.  Now,"  I  said,  "I  want  you  to 
understand  that  if  the  Angel  Gabriel  applied  for  admission 
to  Princeton  University  and  could  not  pass  the  entrance 
examinations,  he  would  not  be  admitted.     He  would  be 


THE  TRAINING  OF  INTELLECT  353 

wasting  his  time."  It  seemed  a  new  idea  to  liim.  This 
boy  had  come  from  a  school  which  cultivated  character, 
and  he  was  a  nice,  lovable  fellow  with  a  presentable 
character.  Therefore,  he  ought  to  be  admitted  to  any 
university.  I  fail  to  see  it  from  this  point  of  view,  for  a 
university  is  an  institution  of  purpose.  We  have  in  some 
previous  years  had  pity  for  young  gentlemen  who  were 
not  sufficiently  acquainted  with  the  elements  of  a  pre- 
paratory course.  They  have  been  dropped  at  the  examina- 
tions, and  I  have  always  felt  that  we  have  been  guilty  of 
an  offense,  and  have  made  their  parents  spend  money  to  no 
avail  and  the  youngsters  spend  their  time  to  no  avail. 
And  so  I  think  that  all  university  men  ought  to  rouse  them- 
selves now  and  understand  what  is  the  object  of  a  univer- 
sity. The  object  of  a  university  is  intellect ;  as  a  univer- 
sity its  only  object  is  intellect.  As  a  body  of  young  men 
there  ought  to  be  other  things,  there  ought  to  be  diversions 
to  release  them  from  the  constant  strain  of  effort,  there 
ought  to  be  things  that  gladden  the  heart  and  moments 
of  leisure,  but  as  a  university  the  only  object  is  intellect. 

The  reason  why  I  chose  the  subject  that  I  am  permitted 
to  speak  upon  to-night  —  the  function  of  scholarship  — 
was  that  I  wanted  to  point  out  the  function  of  scholarship 
not  merely  in  the  university  but  in  the  nation.  In  a 
country  constituted  as  ours  is  the  relation  in  which  educa- 
tion stands  is  a  very  important  one.  Our  whole  theory  has 
been  based  upon  an  enlightened  citizenship  and  therefore 
the  function  of  scholarship  must  be  for  the  nation  as  well 
as  for  the  university  itself.  I  mean  the  function  of 
such  scholarship  as  undergraduates  get.  That  is  not 
a  violent  amount  in  any  case.  You  cannot  make  a 
scholar  of  a  man  except  by  some  largeness  of  Providence 
in  his  makeup,  by  the  time  he  is  twenty-one  or  twenty- 
2a 


354  MODERN  ESSAYS 

two  years  of  age.  There  have  been  gentlemen  who  have 
made  a  reputation  by  twenty-one  or  twenty -two,  but  it  is 
generally  in  some  little  province  of  knowledge,  so  small  that 
a  small  effort  can  conquer  it.  You  do  not  make  scholars 
by  that  time,  you  do  not  often  make  scholars  by  seventy 
that  are  worth  boasting  of.  The  process  of  scholarship, 
so  far  as  the  real  scholar  is  concerned,  is  an  unending 
process,  and  knowledge  is  pushed  forward  only  a  very 
little  by  his  best  efforts.  And  it  is  evident,  of  course,  that 
the  most  you  can  contribute  to  a  man  in  his  undergraduate 
years  is  not  equipment  in  the  exact  knowledge  which  is 
characteristic  of  the  scholar,  but  an  inspiration  of  the 
spirit  of  scholarship.  The  most  that  you  can  give  a 
youngster  is  the  spirit  of  the  scholar. 

Now  the  spirit  of  the  scholar  in  a  country  like  ours 
must  be  a  spirit  related  to  the  national  life.  It  cannot, 
therefore,  be  a  spirit  of  pedantry.  I  suppose  that  this 
is  a  sufficient  working  conception  of  pedantry  to  say  that 
it  is  knowledge  divorced  from  life.  It  is  knowledge  so 
closeted,  so  desecrated,  so  stripped  of  the  significances  of 
life  itself,  that  it  is  a  thing  apart  and  not  connected  with 
the  vital  processes  in  the  world  about  us. 
/^ There  is  a  great  place  in  every  nation  for  the  spirit  of 
/  scholarship,  and  it  seems  to  me  that  there  never  was  a 
time  when  the  spirit  of  scholarship  w^as  more  needed  in 
afTairs  than  it  is  in  this  country  at  this  time. 

We  are  thinking  just  now  with  our  emotions  and  not  with 
our  minds,  we  are  moved  by  impulse  and  not  by  judgment. 
We  are  drawing  away  from  things  with  blind  antipathy. 
The  spirit  of  knowledge  is  that  you  must  base  your  con- 
clusions on  adequate  grounds.  Make  sure  that  you  are 
going  to  the  real  sources  of  knowledge,  discovering  what  the 
real  facts  are  before  you  move  forward  to  the  next  process, 


THE  TRAINING  OF  INTELLECT  355 

which  is  the  process  of  clear  thinking.  By  clear  thinking  I 
do  not  mean  logical  thinking.  I  do  not  mean  that  life 
is  based  upon  any  logical  system  whatever.  Life  is  essen- 
tially illogical.  The  world  is  governed  now  by  a  tumultuous 
sea  of  commonalities  made  up  of  passions,  and  we  should 
pray  God  that  the  good  passions  should  out-vote  the  bad 
passions.  But  the  movement  of  impulse,  of  motive,  is 
the  stuff  of  passion,  and  therefore  clear  thinking  about  life 
is  not  logical,  symmetrical  thinking,  but  it  is  interpretative 
thinking,  thinking  that  sees  the  secret  motive  of  things, 
thinking  that  penetrates  deepest  places  where  are  the 
pulses  of  life. 

Now  scholarship  ought  to  lay  these  impulses  bare  just 
as  the  physician  can  lay  bare  the  seat  of  life  in  our  bodies. 
That  is  not  scholarship  which  goes  to  work  upon  the  mere 
formal  pedantry  of  logical  reasoning,  but  that  is  scholarship 
which  searches  for  the  heart  of  man.  The  spirit  of  scholar- 
ship gives  us  catholicity  of  thinking,  the  readiness  to  under- 
stand that  there  will  constantly  swing  into  our  ken  new 
items  not  dreamed  of  in  our  systems  of  philosophy,  not 
simply  to  draw  our  conclusions  from  the  data  that  we  have 
had,  but  that  all  this  is  under  constant  mutation,  and  that 
therefore  new  phases  of  life  will  come  upon  us  and  a  new 
adjustment  of  our  conclusions  will  be  necessary.  Our 
thinking  must  be  detached  and  disinterested  thinking. 

The  particular  objection  that  I  have  to  the  under- 
^graduate  forming  his  course  of  study  on  his  future  profes- 
sion is  this  — ■  that  from  start  to  finish,  from  the  time 
1  he  enters  the  university  until  he  finishes  his  career,  his 
thought  will  be  centered  upon  particular  interests.  He  will 
be  immersed  in  the  things  that  touch  his  profit  and  loss, 
and  a  man  is  not  free  to  think  inside  that  territory.  If 
his  bread  and  butter  is  going  to  be  affected,  if  he  is  always 


356  MODERN  ESSAYS 

thinking  in  the  terms  of  his  own  profession,  he  is  not  think- 
ing for  the  nation.  He  is  thinking  for  himself,  and  whether 
he  be  conscious  of  it  or  not,  he  can  never  throw  these 
_^trammels  off.  He  will  only  think  as  a  doctor,  or  a  lawyer, 
or  a  banker.  He  will  not  be  free  in  the  world  of  knowledge 
and  in  the  circle  of  interests  which  make  up  the  great 
citizenship  of  the  country.  It  is  necessary  that  the  spirit 
of  scholarship  should  be  a  detached,  disinterested  spirit, 
not  immersed  in  a  particular  interest.  That  is  the  func- 
tion of  scholarship  in  a  country  like  ours,  to  supply,  not 
heat,  but_Jight,  to  suffuse  things  with  the  calm  radiance 
of  reason,  to  see  to  it  that  men  do  not  act  hastily,  but  that 
they  act  considerately,  that  they  obey  the  truth  whether 
they  know  it  or  not.  The  fault  of  our  age  is  the  fault 
of  hasty  action,  of  premature  judgments,  of  a  preference 
for  ill-considered  action  over  no  action  at  all.  Men  who 
insist  upon  standing  still  and  doing  a  little  thinking  be- 
fore they  do  any  acting  are  called  reactionaries.  They 
want  actually  to  react  to  a  state  in  which  they  can  be 
allowed  to  think.  They  want  for  a  little  while  to  with- 
draw from  the  turmoil  of  party  controversy  and  see  where 
they  stand  before  they  commit  themselves  and  their  country 
to  action  from  which  it  may  not  be  possible  to  withdraw. 

The  whole  fault  of  the  modern  age  is  that  it  applies  to 
everything  a  false  standard  of  efficiency.  Efficiency  with 
us  is  accomplishment,  whether  the  accomplishment  be  by 
just  and  well-considered  means  or  not ;  and  this  standard 
of  achievement  it  is  that  is  debasing  the  morals  of  our  age, 
the  intellectual  morals  of  our  age.  We  do  not  stop  to 
do  things  thoroughly ;  we  do  not  stop  to  know  why  we  do 
things.  We  see  an  error  and  we  hastily  correct  it  by  a 
greater  error ;  and  then  go  on  to  cry  that  the  age  is 
corrupt. 


THE  TRAINING  OF  INTELLECT  357 

And  so  it  is,  gentlemen,  that  I  try  to  join  the  function 
of  the  university  with  the  great  function  of  the  national 
life.  The  life  of  this  country  is  going  to  be  revolutionized 
and  purified  only  when  the  universities  of  this  country 
wake  up  to  the  fact  that  their  only  reason  for  existing  is 
intellect,  that  the  objects  that  I  have  set  forth,  so  far 
as  undergraduate  life  is  concerned,  are  the  only  legiti- 
mate objects.  And  every  man  should  crave  for  his  uni- 
versity primacy  in  these  things,  primacy  in  other  things 
also  if  they  may  be  brought  in  without  enmity  to  it, 
but  the  sacrifice  of  everything  that  stands  in  the  way 
of  that. 

For  my  part,  I  do  not  believe  that  it  is  athleticism  which 
stands  in  the  way.  Athletics  have  been  associated  with 
the  achievements  of  the  mind  in  many  a  successful  civiliza- 
tion. There  is  no  difficulty  in  uniting  vigor  of  body  with 
achievement  of  mind,  but  there  is  a  good  deal  of  difficulty 
in  uniting  the  achievement  of  the  mind  with  a  thousand 
distracting  social  influences,  which  take  up  all  our  ambi- 
tions, which  absorb  all  our  thoughts,  which  lead  to  all 
our  arrangements  of  life,  and  then  leave  the  university 
authorities  the  residuum  of  our  attention,  after  we  are 
through  with  the  things  that  we  are  interested  in.  We 
absolutely  changed  the  whole  course  of  study  at  Princeton 
and  revolutionized  the  methods  of  instruction  without 
rousing  a  ripple  on  the  surface  of  the  alumni.  They 
said  those  things  are  intellectual,  they  were  our  business. 
But  just  as  soon  as  we  thought  to  touch  the  social  part  of 
the  university,  there  was  not  only  a  ripple,  but  the  whole 
body  was  torn  to  its  depths.  We  had  touched  the  real 
things.  These  lay  in  triumphal  competition  with  the 
province  of  the  mind,  and  men's  attention  was  so  ab- 
solutely absorbed  in  these  things  that  it  was  impossible 


358  MODERN  ESSAYS 

for  us  to  get  their  interest  enlisted  on  the  real  undertakings 
of  the  university  itself. 

Now  that  is  true  of  every  university  that  I  know  any- 
thing about  in  this  country,  and  if  the  Faculties  in  this 
country  want  to  recapture  the  ground  that  they  have 
lost,  they  must  begin  pretty  soon,  and  they  must  go  into 
the  battle  with  their  bridges  burned  behind  them  so  that 
it  will  be  of  no  avail  to  retreat.  If  I  had  a  voice  to  which 
the  university  men  of  this  country  might  listen,  that  is 
the  endeavor  to  which  my  ambition  would  lead  me  to 
call. 


THE  RESPONSIBILITY  OF  AUTHORS  ^ 

BY 

Sir  Oliver  Lodge 

The  utility  of  the  deductive  form  may  be  illustrated  also  by  this  essay 
of  Sir  Oliver  Lodge.  As  the  footnote  states,  the  question  to  be  discussed 
was  in  regard  to  the  value  of  a  censorship  over  books.  Against  this, 
the  author  wishes  to  make  a  definite  convincing  protest.  His  last  sen- 
tence gives  the  important  conclusion  that  he  wishes  his  readers  to  adopt. 
Every  paragraph  and  every  sentence  in  the  essay  is  chosen  with  this  last 
dominating  sentence  in  mind.  He  begins,  however,  with  a  generaliza- 
tion that  is  so  accepted  that  it  is  a  platitude.  "A  work  of  literature  is  a 
real  work  of  creation";  there  is  nothing  here  that  can  be  objected  to 
by  any  one.  But  if  the  reader  grants  this,  by  careful  deduction  he  shows 
step  by  step  that  the  final  thought  that  censorship  is  undesirable,  is 
the  inevitable  conclusion.  The  process  by  which  he  passes  from  the  first 
to  the  second  is  therefore  worthy  of  careful  study. 

A  WORK  of  literature  is  a  real  work  of  creation.  Authors 
must  often  have  felt  that  their  characters  had  a  will  of 
their  own,  that  they  would  not  always  do  what  was  ex- 
pected of  them,  that  they  took  the  bit  between  their 
,  teeth  sometimes,  that  they  were  not  puppets.  Persons 
in  a  book  or  drama  ought  not  to  be  puppets,  and  should 
not  be  "put  back  in  the  box"  ;   nor  must  they  be  forcibly 

^  An  address  to  the  Society  of  Authors  in  1909  in  special  connection 
with  a  proposed  Library  censorship,  whereby,  if  any  three  Librarians 
agreed  that  a  book  in  course  of  publication  was  undesirable,  it  would 
be  forbidden  at  all  circulating  libraries. 

Reprinted  from  "Modern  Problems,"  by  permission  of  George  H. 
Doran  Co. 

359 


360  MODERN  ESSAYS 

coerced  by  their  creator  to  a  predestined  end  independ- 
ent of  their  character  and  conduct.  If  they  have  been 
properly  created  they  have  a  real  existence  of  their  own, 
an  existence  for  which  the  author  is  responsible,  and  a 
certain  amount  of  free  will  and  independence  of  action. 

Coercion  to  a  predestined  end  is  bad  art.  If  that  state- 
ment is  true  it  is  important.  It  affects  the  doctrine  of 
predestination.  A  good  work  of  art  throws  light  on  many 
problems  of  existence.  For  instance,  the  old  and  funda- 
mental question,  "Why  is  there  any  pain  and  sorrow  in 
the  world?"  can  be  answered  from  this  point  of  view. 
For  it  is  a  familiar  fact  that  pain  and  sorrow  are  not  kept 
out  of  a  work  of  art  designed  and  created  by  man.  Why 
not?  Why  make  trouble  and  pain  artificially,  over  and 
above  what  inevitably  exists  ?  Because  they  are  felt  to 
be  necessary,  because  they  serve  a  useful  end ;  they 
rescue  existence  from  insipidity,  they  furnish  scope  for 
the  exercise  of  human  functions,  — -  their  endurance  is 
justified,  and  felt  to  be  "worth  while." 

King  Lear,  for  instance,  is  a  work  of  pain  and  sorrow 
and  beauty.  To  achieve  the  beauty  the  pain  was  neces- 
sary, and  its  creator  thought  it  worth  while.  He  would 
not  have  it  otherwise,  nor  would  we.  So  it  is  in  real  life. 
Creation  is  "good,"  even  "very  good,"  but  not  perfect. 
We  are  still  living  amid  imperfections ;  there  is  always 
room  for  improvement.  Why  is  there  any  imperfection? 
Because  without  it  evolution  and  progress,  of  the  high  kind 
which  we  are  privileged  to  take  part  in,  could  not  go  on. 
Creation  of  free  and  responsible  beings,  who  go  right  not 
by  compulsion  but  because  they  choose,  who  move  for- 
ward not  because  they  must  but  because  they  will,  cannot 
be  an  easy  task  —  may  we  not  venture  to  say  that  it 
must    be    a    strenuous    task  ?  —  even    to    Omnipotence, 


THE   RESPONSIBILITY  OF  AUTHORS  3G1 

Every  worthy  achievement  demands  certain  conditions ; 
and  one  of  those  conditions  is  toil  and  effort.  The  effort 
of  Creation  is  surely  a  real  effort.  Difficulty  is  a  necessary 
sequel  to  the  gift  of  Freedom. 

The  construction  of  the  physical  universe,  the  inter- 
locking of  atoms  and  ether  that  we  study  in  the  material 
sciences,  is  beautiful  and  wonderful  in  the  extreme ; 
but  it  is  all  a  kind  of  intricate,  and  high-grade  machinery 
—  perfectly  obedient,  strictly  under  control,  never  re- 
bellious. So,  though  vastly  beyond  and  above  mecha- 
nism arranged  by  man,  it  is  not  hopelessly  and  unthink- 
ably  of  a  different  kind,  —  saving  always  for  the  unthink- 
able problem  of  existence  itself.  But  with  the  in- 
troduction of  life  and  mind  and  will,  difficulties  of  a 
superlatively  higher  order  begin.  The  possibility  of 
things  going  wrong,  not  through  oversight  but  through 
active  mutiny  and  rebellion,  the  possibility  of  real  vice, 
can  no  longer  be  ignored.  Compulsion  might  be  easy,  but 
the  introduction  of  compulsion  would  be  a  breaking  of 
the  rules  —  an  abandonment  of  the  problem.  The  state 
of  the  world  is  surely  as  good  as  it  has  been  possible 
to  make  it  —  given  the  conditions,  —  and  exliibits  in- 
finitely more  promise  for  the  future  than  any  mechanically 
perfect  system  could  sustain ;  else  it  were  blasphemy  to 
say  that  there  was  ever  imperfection,  else  the  struggle  for 
existence  were  a  fiction  and  a  sham. 

There  is  undoubtedly  a  struggle,  but  there  is  also  much 
joy,  —  the  joy  of  achievement  sometimes,  the  joy  of 
preparation  always.  The  joy  of  achieved  existence  mani- 
fests itself  in  beauty.  Life  is  pressing  forward  amid 
troubles  and  trials,  pressing  forward  to  realize  itself,  to 
blossom  and  bud  like  a  briar  among  ruins,  even  amid  hard- 
ship and  decay,  —  because  —  because  existence  is  worth 


362  MODERN  ESSAYS 

its  price.  Seen  in  this  light  the  present  pain  and  sorrow 
lend  themselves  to  Optimism.  How  splendid  must  the 
future  of  the  race  be,  if  all  this  trouble  and  all  the  millions 
of  years  of  preparation  that  science  tells  us  of,  were  needed 
as  its  prelude  !  Each  step  is  presumably  essential,  as  it  is 
in  a  good  work  of  art.  Nothing  is  there  wasted  —  each 
word,  each  scene,  each  act,  tells.  So  I  assume  it  to  be 
with  real  existence;  each  step,  however  painful  it  may 
be,  is  an  essential  part  of  the  whole. 

So  an  extraordinary  responsibility  belongs  to  the  artists 
of  the  pen.  They  represent  the  truth  of  the  present  age  to 
itself  and  to  the  future  :  and  not  only  do  they  represent  it, 
they  also  prepare  the  way  and  to  some  extent  determine 
what  the  future  shall  be.  The  influence  exerted  on  the 
living  generation  by  those  writers  who  have  its  ear,  and 
to  whom  it  listens,  must  be  incalculable.  No  wonder  that 
an  effort  is  made  from  time  to  time  to  check  and  control 
the  distribution  of  the  works  produced.  People  of  very 
different  ages  exist  in  the  world,  and  not  everything  is 
wholesome  at  every  age.  Vicious  people  also  exist,  and 
it  behoves  parents  and  guardians  to  exercise  some  super- 
vision —  as  much  as  they  may  think  wise. 

Nevertheless,  freedom  is  essential  to  literature  and  the 
other  arts ;  and  their  essential  freedom  must  not  be  jeop- 
ardized because  of  some  slatternly  and  opprobrious  stuff 
which  presumes  to  masquerade  under  a  sacred  title. 
Everything  on  earth  can  be  misused,  and  the  divinest  gift 
can  be  prostituted ;  parents  and  guardians  may  properly 
feel  responsibility,  but  they  must  not  attempt  to  shift  it 
to  the  shoulders  of  others.  The  danger  may  easily  be 
exaggerated ;  ^nd,  whatever  the  danger,  it  gives  no  justi- 
fication for  a  hasty  trade-sifting  process  applied  to  works 
issued  by  reputable  publishing  houses  and  to  the  writings 


THE  RESPONSIBILITY  OF  AUTHORS         363 

of  sane  andsresponsible  authors.  Coddling  of  that  kind, 
even  if  practicable,  would  defeat  its  own  end.  Youth 
cannot  be  isolated  and  kept  sound  and  sweet  by  means 
such  as  these.  A  robust  is  better  than  an  anaemic  virtue ; 
and,  from  the  Garden  of  Eden  downwards,  though  a 
warning  is  issued  against  forbidden  fruit,  the  tree  on  which 
it  grows  is  not  the  tree  which  by  decree  of  Providence  is 
made  impossible  of  access. 

The  gentlemen  who  own  circulating  libraries  have 
realized  what  they  think  is  their  responsibility  in  this 
matter,  and  they  very  properly  decline  to  circulate  any- 
thing they  think  vicious  —  they  desire  to  issue  only  good 
literature ;  but  unfortunately  the  outcome  of  this  whole- 
some desire  has  taken  the  impracticable  form  of  a  scheme  for 
hasty  amateur  censorship  of  literary  production  generally. 
Such  a  scheme  must  be  futile.  A  censorship  of  the  Press 
by  the  State  —  if  an  attempt  were  made  to  reintroduce 
that  —  might  indeed  be  a  serious  thing ,  against  which  it 
would  be  necessary  to  invoke  the  shade  of  Milton  and  to 
quote  the  Areopagitica.  Indeed,  the  utterances  of  that 
mighty  artist,  who  must  be  credited  with  a  sympathetic 
attitude  to  all  that  is  reasonable  in  the  Puritan  position  — 
are  so  germane  to  the  supposed  need  for  censorship  gener- 
ally, that  I  shall  not  refrain  from  a  few  extracts  :  — 

"For  though  licensers  should  happen  to  be  judicious  more  than 
ordinary,  which  will  be  a  great  jeopardy  of  the  next  succession,  yet 
their  very  office  .  .  .  enjoins  them  to  let  pass  nothing  but  what  is  vul- 
garly received  already.  .  .  . 

"If  there  be  found  in  his  book  one  sentence  of  a  venturous  edge, 
uttered  in  the  height  of  zeal  (and  who  knows  whether  it  might  not  be  the 
dictate  of  a  divine  spirit  ?),  yet,  not  suiting  with  every  low  decrepit 
humour  of  their  own,  though  it  were  Knox  himself,  the  reformer  of  a 
kingdom,  that  spake  it,  they  will  not  pardon  him  their  dash ;  the  sense 
of  that  great  man  shall  to  all  posterity  be  lost,  for  the  fearfulness,  or  the 
presumptuous  rashness  of  a  perfunctory  licenser.  .  .  . 


364  MODERN  ESSAYS 

"...  Wisdom  we  cannot  call  it,  because  it  stops  but  one  breach 
of  license  —  nor  that  neither :  whenas  those  corruptions  which  it  seeks  to 
prevent,  break  in  faster  at  other  doors,  which  cannot  be  shut.  ...  It 
cannot  praise  a  fugitive  and  cloistered  virtue.  .  .  . 

"We  should  be  wary,  therefore,  what  persecution  we  raise  against 
the  living  labours  of  public  men,  how  we  spill  that  seasoned  life  of  man, 
preserved  and  stored  up  in  books ;  since  we  see  a  kind  of  homicide  may 
be  thus  committed,  sometimes  a  martyrdom;  and  if  it  extend  to  the 
whole  impression,  a  kind  of  massacre,  whereof  the  execution  ends  not 
in  the  slaying  of  an  elemental  life,  but  strikes  at  the  ethereal  and  fifth 
essence,  the  breath  of  reason  itself ;  slays  an  immortality  rather  than  a 
life." 

Censorship  of  the  Press  was  not  slain  by  Milton's  attack ; 
it  survived  and  presumably  flourished  during  the  pro- 
ductive era  of  the  Restoration ;  but,  its  impotence  having 
become  manifest,  it  perished  some  fifty  years  after  Milton's 
death. 

Censorship  of  the  drama,  oddly  enough,  we  are  living 
under  now  ;  and  though  comic  in  its  manner  and  execution, 
it  is  yet  serious  in  its  effect  and  outcome.  It  has  prevailed 
to  stop  some  good  work ;  it  does  not  avail  to  stop  the 
foolish  and  the  bad,  but  it  stops  some  of  the  good  —  that  is 
what  censorship  always  does  —  and  a  censorship  by  a 
combination  of  circulating  librarians  cannot  hope  to 
achieve  anything  better.  It  can  perturb  the  freedom  of 
production  in  the  literature  of  to-day ;  but  over  the 
literature  of  yesterday  no  one  imagines  that  it  has^any 
control.  The  writers  of  the  past  have  the  freedom  which 
it  is  proposed  to  deny  to  the  writers  of  the  present.  Thus 
some  good  work  has  anyhow  escaped  destruction.  There 
may  be  tares  among  the  wheat  —  quite  true  —  no  doubt 
there  are ;  but  we  have  been  warned  against  the  danger 
of  prematurely  uprooting  tares,  lest  we  uproot  the  wheat 
also.  It  is  safer  to  let  both  grow  together.  Fortunately 
the  good  has  a  longer  life  than  the  bad,  and  will  survive 


THE  RESPONSIBILITY  OF  AUTHORS         365 

and  be  full  of  influence  long  after  the  rubbish  has  re- 
treated to  its  proper  obscurity. 

"  But  of  the  harm  that  may  result  hence  .  .  .  first  is  feared  the  infec- 
tion that  may  spread ;  but  then  all  human  learning  and  controversy  in 
religious  points  must  remove  out  of  the  world,  yea,  the  Bible  itself." 

If  some  now  universally  recognized  works  of  literature  — 
let  us  say  if  the  classic  novels  of  Henry  Fielding  —  were 
to  be  brought  out  to-day,  they  would  surely  under  the 
proposed  arrangement  be  banned.  As  it  is,  they  can  be 
bought  anywhere  for  a  trifling  sum.  There  was  some 
outcry,  I  remember,  about  Kingsley's  Hypatia  —  amazing 
as  the  fact  sounds  now.  Yes,  and  Adam  Bede,  too,  was 
objected  to  by  some.  In  my  youth  Jane  Eyre  was  a  book 
half  forbidden. 

Here  is  part  of  a  letter  from  Kingsley  to  Bishop  Wilber- 
force  on  the  subject  of  Hypatia  so  late  as  1873  :  — 

"Your  letter,  I  say,  touched  me  deeply,  and  all  the  more,  because  it 
came  from  one  who  had  been  a  sailor.  But  your  kind  words  about 
Hypatia  touched  me  more  than  those  about  Westward  Ho ! ;  for  the  former 
book  was  written  with  my  heart's  blood,  and  was  received,  as  I  expected, 
with  curses  from  many  of  the  very  Churchmen  whom  I  was  trying  to 
warn  and  save.  Yet  I  think  the  book  did  good.  I  know  that  it  has  not 
hurt  me,  save,  perhaps,  in  that  ecclesiastical  career  to  which  I  have  never 
aspired." 

At  a  time  much  earlier,  in  1851,  when  Yeast  appeared, 
it  was  received  with  a  torrent  of  hostile  criticism,  which 
though  partly  clerical  and  political,  was  damaging  not 
only  to  a  clergyman  but  to  any  reputable  citizen.  Here,  for 
instance,  is  an  extract  from  The  Guardian  of  that  date: — ' 

"A  man  in  the  position  of  the  author  of  Alton  LocJce  (if  he  be  the  writer) 
commits  a  grave  offence  when  he  publishes  such  a  book  as  this.  Pro- 
fessing to  aim  at  religious  earnestness  and  high  morality,  its  tendencies 
are  really  to  the  destruction  of  both.  ...     It  is  the  countenance  the 


366  MODERN  ESSAYS 

writer  gives  to  the  worst  tendencies  of  the  day,  and  the  manner  in  which 
he  conceals  loose  morality  in  a  dress  of  high-sounding  and  philosophical 
phraseology,  which  calls  for  plain  and  decided  condemnation.  .  .  .  Doc- 
trines, however  consecrated  by  the  faith  of  ages,  practices,  however 
recommended  by  the  lives  of  saints,  or  the  authority  of  wise  and  good 
men,  are  to  be  despised  if  they  interfere  with  what  he  thinks  the  full  de- 
velopment of  our  nature,  tend  to  check  the  wildest  speculations  of  the 
intellect,  or  even  to  restrain  (if  we  understand  the  teaching  of  his  char- 
acter) the  most  entire  indulgence  of  the  passions." 

And  so  on,  with  sentences  in  which  the  phrases  "youthful 
profligacy,"  "selfish  gratification,"  "impure  philosophy," 
sufficiently  exhibit  the  charges  made. 

Indeed,  such  was  the  agitation  about  Kingsley's  con- 
scientious utterances  at  that  time  that  he  was  actually 
forbidden  by  the  Bishop  of  London  to  preach  in  London, 
until  the  Bishop  had  had  an  opportunity  of  looking  into 
the  matter. 

A  poem  of  Clough's,  too,  seems  to  have  been  attacked ; 
for  we  find  Kingsley  writing  to  a  friend  in  the  following 
strongly  worded  style  in  1848 :  — 

"As  for  Clough's  poem.  I  am  game  to  'go  in'  fiercely  against  all 
Manicheans,  Hermann-and-Dorothea-formalists,  and  other  unclean 
beasts,  to  prove  that  Clough  knows  best  what  he  wants  to  say,  and  how ; 
and  that  taking  the  poem  inductively,  and  not  a  priori  (as  the  world,  the 
flesh,  and  the  devil  take  works  of  art),  there  is  a  true  honest  harmony, 
and  a  genial  life  in  it,  as  of  a  man  who,  seeing  things  as  they  were,  and 
believing  that  God  and  not  'taste'  or  the  devil  settles  things,  was  not 
ashamed  to  describe  what  he  saw." 

It  is  plain,  then,  that  contemporary  criticism  may  be 
mistaken,  and  that  a  hasty  censorship  may  commit  much 
injustice. 

"  But  that  a  book,  in  worse  condition  than  a  peccant  soul,  should  be  to 
stand  before  a  jury  ere  it  be  born  to  the  world,  and  undergo  yet  in  darkness 
the  judgment  of  Radamanth  and  his  colleagues,  ere  it  can  pass  the  ferry 
backward  into  light,  was  never  heard  before." 


THE  RESPONSIBILITY  OF  AUTHORS         367 

As  to  the  accusation  of  "blasphemy,"  we  can  comfort 
ourselves  with  the  thought  that  the  holiest  saints  in  the 
past  did  not  escape  that.  "The  Christian  faith  —  for 
that  was  once  a  schism!"  The  real  adjective  to  apply- 
in  these  cases  is  "unconventional"  —  contrary  to  accepted 
convention  —  if  that  is  what  is  meant ;  then  we  should 
know  where  we  were.  But  this  adjective  is  not  suffi- 
ciently strong  and  damaging  to  be  injurious.  It  has  even 
been  regarded  as  semi-complimentary ;  consequently, 
when  Mr.  Bernard  Shaw  magnanimously  wished  to 
assist  critics  in  applying  opprobrious  epithets  to  his  own 
plays,  he  suggested  the  use  of  the  word  "immoral"  instead. 

But  such  an  application  of  this  word  would  be  merely 
misleading  and  most  unwise.  The  significance  of  the 
term  "unconventional"  should  be  strengthened,  till  it 
conveyed  what  was  intended.  The  conventions  of  society 
are  quite  useful  things,  the  result  of  ages  of  experience, 
and  any  conduct  or  writing  that  runs  counter  to  them 
must  be  prepared  to  stand  the  test  of  criticism  and  to 
justify  itself  thoroughly ;  but  it  should  not  be  condemned 
unheard. 

The  importance  and  responsibility  of  free  criticism,  too, 
should  be  fully  recognized  ;  and  the  social  ostracism  which 
it  can  be  the  means  of  inflicting  is  the  appropriate  and 
legitimate  penalty  for  needlessly  or  prematurely  infringing 
the  conventions  of  society.  All  good  customs  have  their 
day,  and  in  due  time  will  cease  to  be.  Premature  attacks, 
like  premature  attacks  in  chess,  are  bound  to  fail.  But, 
every  now  and  then,  attacks  upon  conventions  must  be 
made,  and  when  the  time  is  ripe  will  succeed.  An  open 
and  above-board  attack  is  far  better  than  one  that  skulks 
in  holes  and  corners,  and  it  is  best  to  permit  things  to  be 
said  when  they  are  seriously  thought.     That  is  why  free- 


368  MODERN  ESSAYS 

dom  of  the  Press  is  so  necessary  and  valuable,  not  only 
as  a  reforming  agency,  but  also  as  an  outlet  for  malicious 
humours,  which  else  might  accumulate  in  the  body  politic 
and  are  better  purged. 

A  writer  or  publisher  who  infringes  the  criminal  law  is 
rightly  liable  to  severe  penalties,  and  thereafter  to  re- 
striction ;  but  occasional  abuses  of  this  kind  give  no  ade- 
quate ground  for  curtailment  of  legitimate  freedom. 
Freedom  is  the  noble  and  dangerous  gift  that  has  been 
bestowed  upon  the  human  race  —  the  power  of  choice 
and  full  responsibility  therefor.  This  responsibility  al- 
ready rests  heavily  on  the  shoulders  of  every  artist,  every 
writer.  Upon  him  has  been  bestowed  the  gift  of  insight 
into  life  above  his  fellows.  He  can  see  what  they  see, 
but  he  can  see  it  more  clearly ;  he  can  see  more  and  further 
than  they  can.  He  cannot  only  see,  he  can  say ;  he  has 
the  gift  of  utterance,  and  he  is  bound  to  utter  what  he 
seriously  feels  to  be  his  message.  There  were  times  when 
he  was  threatened  with  the  rack  or  the  stake  if  he  did  not 
hold  his  tongue.  The  early  scientific  discoverers  were 
suppressed  in  every  possible  manner.  But  the  more  they 
were  suppressed,  the  more  a  great  deal  they  published  it ;  and 
through  their  labors  we  have  attained  to  our  present  large 
and  beneficent  freedom.  With  a  great  price  our  ancestors 
attained  this  freedom,  but  we  were  free-born.  We  are 
not  going  at  the  beginning  of  the  twentieth  century  to 
lose  this  birthright,  at  the  dictate  of  any  three  persons, 
however  estimable,  however  well-meaning,  however  able 
they  may  be. 


FILIAL  RELATIONS  1 

BY 

Jane  Addams 

One  of  the  great  modern  problems  is  that  of  the  position  of  woman, 
and  concerning  it  there  is  no  more  careful  thinker  than  Miss  Addams, 
who  herself  embodies  her  conception.  The  following  essay  was  one 
of  a  series  of  lectures  delivered  before  academic  audiences.  Since  an 
audience  imposes  its  characteristics  upon  the  lecture,  the  following 
essay  is  abstract  and  very  carefully  reasoned.  It  begins  with  the 
point  of  view  of  the  audience,  namely  an  exposition  of  the  position  of 
the  conservative  element.  Then  by  slow  degrees  the  dominating  prin- 
ciple of  the  demands  of  Society  upon  the  daughter  is  elaborated.  From 
this  follows  the  deduction  that  much  of  the  misery  of  the  modern  house- 
hold lies  in  the  imperfect  recognition  of  the  conflicting  claims  of  the 
Family  and  the  State.  It  is  interesting  to  notice  how  very  slowly  Miss 
Addams  develops  her  thought.  Each  position  is  stated  very  fully  before 
the  new  step  is  taken.  Also  notice  how-  academic  are  her  illustrations. 
They  are  drawn  from  the  life  of  Saint  Francis  of  Assisi,  from  Switzerland, 
and  finally  and  elaborately  from  the  drama  of  King  Lear.  In  each  case 
it  is  clear  that  she  is  addressing  not  only  an  audience  that  thinks,  but 
one  that  reads.  Consider  what  would  result  to  her  argument  if  the 
reader  were  not  familiar  with  Lear  I  To  what  extent  does  an  essay  like 
this  gain  and  lose  in  the  limitation  of  its  appeal  ? 

There  are  many  people  in  every  community  who  have 
not  felt  the  "social  compunction,"  who  do  not  share  the 
effort  toward  a  higher  social  morality,  who  are  even  unable 
to  sympathetically  interpret  it.  Some  of  these  have  been 
shielded  from  the  inevitable  and  salutary  failures  which  the 

1  From  "Democracy  and  Social  Ethics,"  by  permission  of  The  Mac- 
millan  Co. 

2  b  369 


370  MODERN  ESSAYS 

trial  of  new  powers  involve,  because  they  are  content  to 
attain  standards  of  virtue  demanded  by  an  easy  public 
opinion,  and  others  of  them  have  exhausted  their  moral 
energy  in  attaining  to  the  current  standard  of  individual 
and  family  righteousness. 

Such  people,  who  form  the  bulk  of  contented  society, 
demand  that  the  radical,  the  reformer,  shall  be  without 
stain  or  question  in  his  personal  and  family  relations,  and 
judge  most  harshly  any  deviation  from  the  established 
standards.  There  is  a  certain  justice  in  this  :  it  expresses 
the  inherent  conservatism  of  the  mass  of  men,  that  none 
of  the  established  virtues  which  have  been  so  slowly  and 
hardly  acquired  shall  be  sacrificed  for  the  sake  of  making 
problematic  advance ;  that  the  individual,  in  his  attempt 
to  develop  and  use  the  new  and  exalted  virtue,  shall  not 
fall  into  the  easy  temptation  of  letting  the  ordinary  ones 
slip  through  his  fingers. 

This  instinct  to  conserve  the  old  standards,  combined 
with  a  distrust  of  the  new  standard,  is  a  constant  difficulty 
in  the  way  of  those  experiments  and  advances  depending 
upon  the  initiative  of  women,  both  because  women  are 
the  more  sensitive  to  the  individual  and  family  claims, 
and  because  their  training  has  tended  to  make  them  con- 
tent with  the  response  to  these  claims  alone. 

There  is  no  doubt  that,  in  the  effort  to  sustain  the  moral 
energy  necessary  to  work  out  a  more  satisfactory  social 
relation,  the  individual  often  sacrifices  the  energy  which 
should  legitimately  go  into  the  fulfilment  of  personal  and 
family  claims,  to  what  he  considers  the  higher  claim. 

In  considering  the  changes  which  our  increasing  de- 
mocracy is  constantly  making  upon  various  relationships, 
it  is  impossible  to  ignore  the  filial  relation.  This  chapter 
deals  with  the  relation  between  parents  and  their  grown-up 


FILIAL  RELATIONS  371 

daughters,  as  affording  an  explicit  illustration  of  the 
perplexity  and  mal-adjustment  brought  about  by  the 
various  attempts  of  young  women  to  secure  a  more  active 
share  in  the  community  life.  We  constantly  see  parents 
very  much  disconcerted  and  perplexed  in  regard  to  their 
daughters  when  these  daughters  undertake  work  lying 
quite  outside  of  traditional  and  family  interests.  These 
parents  insist  that  the  girl  is  carried  away  by  a  foolish 
enthusiasm,  that  she  is  in  search  of  a  career,  that  she  is 
restless  and  does  not  know  what  she  wants.  They  will  give 
any  reason,  almost,  rather  than  the  recognition  of  a  genuine 
and  dignified  claim.  Possibly  all  this  is  due  to  the  fact  that 
for  so  many  hundreds  of  years  women  have  had  no  larger 
interests,  no  participation  in  the  affairs  lying  quite  outside 
personal  and  family  claims.  Any  attempt  that  the  indi- 
vidual woman  formerly  made  to  subordinate  or  renounce 
the  family  claim  was  inevitably  construed  to  mean  that  she 
was  setting  up  her  own  will  against  that  of  her  family's 
for  selfish  ends.  It  was  concluded  that  she  could  have 
no  motive  larger  than  a  desire  to  serve  her  family,  and 
her  attempt  to  break  away  must  therefore  be  wilful  and 
self-indulgent. 

The  family  logically  consented  to  give  her  up  at  her 
marriage,  when  she  was  enlarging  the  family  tie  by 
founding  another  family.  It  was  easy  to  understand  that 
they  permitted  and  even  promoted  her  going  to  college, 
travelling  in  Europe,  or  any  other  means  of  self-improve- 
ment, because  these  merely  meant  the  development  and 
cultivation  of  one  of  its  own  members.  When,  however, 
she  responded  to  her  impulse  to  fulfil  the  social  or  demo- 
cratic claim,  she  violated  every  tradition. 

The  mind  of  each  one  of  us  reaches  back  to  our  first 
struggles  as  we  emerged  from  self-willed  childhood  into 


37!2  MODERN  ESSAYS 

a  recognition  of  family  obligations.  We  have  all  gradu- 
ally learned  to  respond  to  them,  and  yet  most  of  us  have 
had  at  least  fleeting  glimpses  of  what  it  might  be  to 
disregard  them  and  the  elemental  claim  they  make  upon 
us.  We  have  yielded  at  times  to  the  temptation  of  ig- 
noring them  for  selfish  aims,  of  considering  the  individual 
and  not  the  family  convenience,  and  we  remember  with 
shame  the  self-pity  which  inevitably  followed.  But  just 
as  we  have  learned  to  adjust  the  personal  and  family 
claims,  and  to  find  an  orderly  development  impossible 
without  recognition  of  both,  so  perhaps  we  are  called  upon 
now  to  make  a  second  adjustment  between  the  family 
and  the  social  claim,  in  which  neither  shall  lose  and  both  be 
ennobled. 

The  attempt  to  bring  about  a  healing  compromise  in 
which  the  two  shall  be  adjusted  in  proper  relation  is  not 
an  easy  one.  It  is  difficult  to  distinguish  between  the 
outward  act  of  him  who  in  following  one  legitimate  claim 
has  been  led  into  the  temporary  violation  of  another, 
and  the  outward  act  of  him  who  deliberately  renounces  a 
just  claim  and  throws  aside  all  obligation  for  the  sake  of 
his  own  selfish  and  individual  development.  The  man, 
for  instance,  who  deserts  his  family  that  he  may  cultivate 
an  artistic  sensibility,  or  acquire  what  he  considers  more 
fulness  of  life  for  himself,  must  always  arouse  our  contempt. 
Breaking  the  marriage  tie  as  Ibsen's  "Nora"  did,  to  obtain 
a  larger  self -development,  or  holding  to  it  as  George  Eliot's 
"Romola"  did,  because  of  the  larger  claim  of  the  state 
and  society,  must  always  remain  two  distinct  paths.  The 
collision  of  interests,  each  of  which  has  a  real  moral  basis 
and  a  right  to  its  own  place  in  life,  is  bound  to  be  more  or 
less  tragic.  It  is  the  struggle  between  two  claims,  the 
destruction  of  either  of  which  would  bring  ruin  to  the 


FILIAL  EELATIONS  373 

ethical  life.  Curiously  enough,  it  is  almost  exactly  this 
contradiction  which  is  the  tragedy  set  forth  by  the  Greek 
dramatist,  who  asserted  that  the  gods  who  watch  over  the 
sanctity  of  the  family  bond  must  yield  to  the  higher  claims 
of  the  gods  of  the  state.  The  failure  to  recognize  the  social 
claim  as  legitimate  causes  the  trouble ;  the  suspicion 
constantly  remains  that  woman's  public  efforts  are  merely 
selfish  and  captious,  and  are  not  directed  to  the  general 
good.  This  suspicion  will  never  be  dissipated  until 
parents,  as  well  as  daughters,  feel  the  democratic  impulse 
and  recognize  the  social  claim. 

Our  democracy  is  making  inroads  upon  the  family, 
the  oldest  of  human  institutions,  and  a  claim  is  being 
advanced  which  in  a  certain  sense  is  larger  than  the 
family  claim.  The  claim  of  the  state  in  time  of  war  has 
long  been '  recognized,  so  that  in  its  name  the  family 
has  given  up  sons  and  husbands  and  even  the  fathers  of 
little  children.  If  we  can  once  see  the  claims  of  society 
in  any  such  light,  if  its  misery  and  need  can  be  made  clear 
and  urged  as  an  explicit  claim,  as  the  state  urges  its  claims 
in  the  time  of  danger,  then  for  the  first  time  the  daughter 
who  desires  to  minister  to  that  need  will  be  recognized 
as  acting  conscientiously.  This  recognition  may  easily 
come  first  through  the  emotions,  and  may  be  admitted 
as  a  response  to  pity  and  mercy  long  before  it  is  formu- 
lated and  perceived  by  the  intellect. 

The  family  as  well  as  the  state  we  are  all  called  upon 
to  maintain  as  the  highest  institutions  which  the  race  has 
evolved  for  its  safeguard  and  protection.  But  merely  to 
preserve  these  institutions  is  not  enough.  There  come 
periods  of  reconstruction,  during  which  the  task  is  laid 
upon  a  passing  generation,  to  enlarge  the  function  and 
carry  forward  the  ideal  of  a  long-established  institution. 


374  MODERN  ESSAYS 

There  is  no  doubt  that  many  women,  consciously  and 
unconsciously,  are  struggling  with  this  task.  The  family, 
like  every  other  element  of  human  life,  is  susceptible  of 
progress,  and  from  epoch  to  epoch  its  tendencies  and  as- 
pirations are  enlarged,  although  its  duties  can  never  be 
abrogated  and  its  obligations  can  never  be  cancelled. 
It  is  impossible  to  bring  about  the  higher  development  by 
any  self-assertion  or  breaking  away  of  the  individual  will. 
The  new  growth  in  the  plant  swelling  against  the  sheath, 
which  at  the  same  time  imprisons  and  protects  it,  must  still 
be  the  truest  type  of  progress.  The  family  in  its  entirety 
must  be  carried  out  into  the  larger  life.  Its  various 
members  together  must  recognize  and  acknowledge  the 
validity  of  the  social  obligation.  When  this  does  not  occur 
we  have  a  most  flagrant  example  of  the  ill-adjustment 
and  misery  arising  when  an  ethical  code  is  applied  too 
rigorously  and  too  conscientiously  to  conditions  which 
are  no  longer  the  same  as  when  the  code  was  instituted, 
and  for  which  it  was  never  designed.  We  have  all  seen 
parental  control  and  the  family  claim  assert  their  authority 
in  fields  of  effort  which  belong  to  the  adult  judgment  of 
the  child  and  pertain  to  activity  quite  outside  the  family 
life.  Probably  the  distinctively  family  tragedy  of  which 
we  all  catch  glimpses  now  and  then,  is  the  assertion  of  this 
authority  through  all  the  entanglements  of  wounded 
affection  and  misunderstanding.  We  see  parents  and 
children  acting  from  conscientious  motives  and  with  the 
tenderest  affection,  yet  bringing  about  a  misery  which 
can  scarcely  be  hidden. 

Such  glimpses  remind  us  of  that  tragedy  enacted 
centuries  ago  in  Assisi,  when  the  eager  young  noble  cast 
his  very  clothing  at  his  father's  feet,  dramatically  renounc- 
ing his  filial  allegiance,  and  formally  subjecting  the  narrow 


FILIAL  RELATIONS  375 

family  claim  to  the  wider  and  more  universal  duty. 
All  the  conflict  of  tragedy  ensued  which  might  have  been 
averted,  had  the  father  recognized  the  higher  claim,  and 
had  he  been  willing  to  subordinate  and  adjust  his  own 
claim  to  it.  The  father  considered  his  son  disrespectful 
and  hard-hearted,  yet  we  know  St.  Francis  to  have 
been  the  most  tender  and  loving  of  men,  responsive  to 
all  possible  ties,  even  to  those  of  inanimate  nature.  We 
know  that  by  his  affections  he  freed  the  frozen  life  of  his 
time.  The  elements  of  tragedy  lay  in  the  narrowness  of 
the  father's  mind ;  in  his  lack  of  comprehension  and  his 
lack  of  sympathy  with  the  power  which  was  moving 
his  son,  and  which  was  but  part  of  the  religious  revival 
which  swept  Europe  from  end  to  end  in  the  early  part  of 
the  thirteenth  century;  the  same  power  which  built 
the  cathedrals  of  the  North,  and  produced  the  saints  and 
sages  of  the  South.  But  the  father's  situation  was  never- 
theless genuine ;  he  felt  his  heart  sore  and  angry,  and  his 
dignity  covered  with  disrespect.  He  could  not,  indeed, 
have  felt  otherwise,  unless  he  had  been  touched  by  the 
fire  of  the  same  revival,  and  lifted  out  of  and  away  from 
the  contemplation  of  himself  and  his  narrower  claim. 
It  is  another  proof  that  the  notion  of  a  larger  obligation 
can  only  come  through  the  response  to  an  enlarged  inter- 
est in  life  and  in  the  social  movements  around  us. 

The  grown-up  son  has  so  long  been  considered  a  citizen 
with  well-defined  duties  and  a  need  of  "making  his  way 
in  the  world,"  that  the  family  claim  is  urged  much  less 
strenuously  in  his  case,  and  as  a  matter  of  authority,  it 
ceases  gradually  to  be  made  at  all.  In  the  case  of  the 
grown-up  daughter,  however,  who  is  under  no  necessity 
of  earning  a  living,  and  who  has  no  strong  artistic  bent, 
taking  her  to  Paris  to  study  painting  or  to  Germany  to 


376  MODERN  ESSAYS 

study  music,  the  years  immediately  following  her  gradua- 
tion from  college  are  too  often  filled  with  a  restlessness 
and  unhappiness  which  might  be  avoided  by  a  little  clear 
thinking,  and  by  an  adaptation  of  our  code  of  family 
ethics  to  modern  conditions. 

It  is  always  difficult  for  the  family  to  regard  the  daughter 
otherwise  than  as  a  family  possession.  From  her  baby- 
hood she  has  been  the  charm  and  grace  of  the  household, 
and  it  is  hard  to  think  of  her  as  an  integral  part  of  the 
social  order,  hard  to  believe  that  she  has  duties  outside 
of  the  family,  to  the  state  and  to  society  in  the  larger  sense. 
This  assumption  that  the  daughter  is  solely  an  inspiration 
and  refinement  to  the  family  itself  and  its  own  immediate 
circle,  that  her  delicacy  and  polish  are  but  outward  symbols 
of  her  father's  protection  and  prosperity,  worked  very 
smoothly  for  the  most  part  so  long  as  her  education  was  in 
line  with  it.  When  there  was  absolutely  no  recognition 
of  the  entity  of  woman's  life  beyond  the  family,  when  the 
outside  claims  upon  her  were  still  wholly  unrecognized, 
the  situation  was  simple,  and  the  finishing  school  harmoni- 
ously and  elegantly  answered  all  requirements.  She  was 
fitted  to  grace  the  fireside  and  to  add  lustre  to  that  social 
circle  which  her  parents  selected  for  her.  But  this  family 
assumption  has  been  notably  broken  into,  and  educational 
ideas  no  longer  fit  it.  Modern  education  recognizes 
woman  quite  apart  from  family  or  society  claims,  and  gives 
her  the  training  which  for  many  years  has  been  deemed 
successful  for  highly  developing  a  man's  individuality 
and  freeing  his  powers  for  independent  action.  Perplexi- 
ties often  occur  when  the  daughter  returns  from  college 
and  finds  that  this  recognition  has  been  but  partially 
accomplished.  When  she  attempts  to  act  upon  the  as- 
sumption of  its  accomplishment,  she  finds  herself  jarring 


FILIAL  RELATIONS  377 

upon  ideals  which  are  so  entwined  with  filial  piety,  so 
rooted  in  the  tenderest  affections  of  which  the  human 
heart  is  capable,  that  both  daughter  and  parents  are 
shocked  and  startled  when  they  disco ver  what  is  happening, 
and  they  scarcely  venture  to  analyze  the  situation.  The 
ideal  for  the  education  of  woman  has  changed  under  the 
pressure  of  a  new  claim.  The  family  has  responded  to 
the  extent  of  granting  the  education,  but  they  are  jeal- 
ous of  the  new  claim  and  assert  the  family  claim  as  over 
against  it. 

The  modern  woman  finds  herself  educated  to  recognize  a 
stress  of  social  obligation  which  her  family  did  not  in  the 
least  anticipate  when  they  sent  her  to  college.  She  finds 
herself,  in  addition,  under  an  impulse  to  act  her  part  as  a 
citizen  of  the  world.  She  accepts  her  family  inheritance 
with  loyalty  and  affection,  but  she  has  entered  into  a  wider 
inheritance  as  well,  which,  for  lack  of  a  better  phrase,  we 
call  the  social  claim.  This  claim  has  been  recognized 
for  four  years  in  her  training,  but  after  her  return  from 
college  the  family  claim  is  again  exclusively  and  strenu- 
ously asserted.  The  situation  has  all  the  discomfort  of 
transition  and  compromise.  The  daughter  finds  a  con- 
stant and  totally  unnecessary  conflict  between  the  social 
and  the  family  claims.  In  most  cases  the  former  is  re- 
pressed and  gives  way  to  the  family  claim,  because  the 
latter  is  concrete  and  definitely  asserted,  while  the  social 
demand  is  vague  and  unformulated.  In  such  instances 
the  girl  quietly  submits,  but  she  feels  wronged  whenever 
she  allows  her  mind  to  dwell  upon  the  situation.  She 
either  hides  her  hurt,  and  splendid  reserves  of  enthusiasm 
and  capacity  go  to  waste,  or  her  zeal  and  emotions  are 
turned  inward,  and  the  result  is  an  unhappy  woman, 
whose  heart  is  consumed  by  vain  regrets  and  desires. 


378  MODERN  ESSAYS 

If  the  college  woman  is  not  thus  quietly  reabsorbed,  she 
is  even  reproached  for  her  discontent.  She  is  told  to  be 
devoted  to  her  family,  inspiring  and  responsive  to  her 
social  circle,  and  to  give  the  rest  of  her  time  to  further 
self-improvement  and  enjoyment.  She  expects  to  do  this, 
and  responds  to  these  claims  to  the  best  of  her  ability, 
even  heroically  sometimes.  But  where  is  the  larger  life  of 
which  she  has  dreamed  so  long?  That  life  which  sur- 
rounds and  completes  the  individual  and  family  life.'* 
She  has  been  taught  that  it  is  her  duty  to  share  this  life, 
and  her  highest  privilege  to  extend  it.  This  divergence 
between  her  self-centred  existence  and  her  best  convic- 
tions becomes  constantly  more  apparent.  But  the  situa- 
tion is  not  even  so  simple  as  a  conflict  between  her  affec- 
tions and  her  intellectual  convictions,  although  even  that 
is  tumultuous  enough,  also  the  emotional  nature  is  divided 
against  itself.  The  social  claim  is  a  demand  upon  the 
emotions  as  well  as  upon  the  intellect,  and  in  ignoring 
it  she  represses  not  only  her  convictions  but  lowers  her 
springs  of  vitality.  Her  life  is  full  of  contradictions.  She 
looks  out  into  the  world,  longing  that  some  demand  be 
made  upon  her  powers,  for  they  are  too  untrained  to 
furnish  an  initiative.  When  her  health  gives  way  under 
this  strain,  as  it  often  does,  her  physician  invariably  ad- 
vises a  rest.  But  to  be  put  to  bed  and  fed  on  milk  is  not 
what  she  requires.  What  she  needs  is  simple,  health- 
giving  activity,  which,  involving  the  use  of  all  her  faculties, 
shall  be  a  response  to  all  the  claims  which  she  so  keenly 
feels. 

It  is  quite  true  that  the  family  often  resents  her  first 
attempts  to  be  part  of  a  life  quite  outside  their  own, 
because  the  college  woman  frequently  makes  these  first 
attempts  most  awkwardly;    her  faculties  have  not  been 


FILIAL  RELATIONS  379 

trained  in  the  line  of  action.  She  lacks  the  abihty  to 
apply  her  knowledge  and  theories  to  life  itself  and  to  its 
complicated  situations.  This  is  largely  the  fault  of  her 
training  and  of  the  one-sidedness  of  educational  methods. 
The  colleges  have  long  been  full  of  the  best  ethical  teach- 
ing, insisting  that  the  good  of  the  whole  must  ultimately 
be  the  measure  of  effort,  and  that  the  individual  can  only 
secure  his  own  rights  as  he  labors  to  secure  those  of  others. 
But  while  the  teaching  has  included  an  ever-broadening 
range  of  obligation  and  has  insisted  upon  the  recognition 
of  the  claims  of  human  brotherhood,  the  training  has  been 
singularly  individualistic ;  it  has  fostered  ambitions  for 
personal  distinction,  and  has  trained  the  faculties  almost 
exclusively  in  the  direction  of  intellectual  accumulation. 
Doubtless,  woman's  education  is  at  fault,  in  that  it  has 
failed  to  recognize  certain  needs,  and  has  failed  to  cultivate 
and  guide  the  larger  desires  of  which  all  generous  young 
hearts  are  full. 

During  the  most  formative  years  of  life,  it  gives  the 
young  girl  no  contact  with  the  feebleness  of  childhood, 
the  pathos  of  suffering,  or  the  needs  of  old  age.  It  gathers 
together  crude  youth  in  contact  only  with  each  other  and 
with  mature  men  and  women  who  are  there  for  the  purpose 
of  their  mental  direction.  The  tenderest  promptings  are 
bidden  to  bide  their  time.  This  could  only  be  justifiable 
if  a  definite  outlet  were  provided  when  they  leave  college. 
Doubtless  the  need  does  not  differ  widely  in  men  and 
women,  but  women  not  absorbed  in  professional  or  busi- 
ness life,  in  the  years  immediately  following  college,  are 
baldly  brought  face  to  face  with  the  deficiencies  of  their 
training.  Apparently  every  obstacle  is  removed,  and 
the  college  woman  is  at  last  free  to  begin  the  active  life, 
for  which,  during  so  many  years,  she  has  been  preparing. 


380  MODERN  ESSAYS 

But  during  this  so-called  preparation,  her  faculties  have 
been  trained  solely  for  accumulation,  and  she  has  learned 
to  utterly  distrust  the  finer  impulses  of  her  nature,  which 
would  naturally  have  connected  her  with  human  interests 
outside  of  her  family  and  her  own  immediate  social  circle. 
All  through  school  and  college  the  young  soul  dreamed  of 
self-sacrifice,  of  succor  to  the  helpless  and  of  tenderness  to 
the  unfortunate.  We  persistently  distrust  these  desires, 
and,  unless  they  follow  well-defined  lines,  we  repress  them 
with  every  device  of  convention  and  caution. 

One  summer  the  writer  went  from  a  two  weeks'  residence 
in  East  London,  where  she  had  become  sick  and  be- 
wildered by  the  sights  and  sounds  encountered  there, 
directly  to  Switzerland.  She  found  the  beaten  routes  of 
travel  filled  with  young  English  men  and  women  who  could 
walk  many  miles  a  day,  and  who  could  climb  peaks  so 
inaccessible  that  the  feats  received  honorable  mention  in 
Alpine  journals,  —  a  result  which  filled  their  families  with 
joy  and  pride.  These  young  people  knew  to  a  nicety  the 
proper  diet  and  clothing  which  would  best  contribute 
toward  endurance.  Everything  was  very  fine  about  them 
save  their  motive  power.  The  writer  does  not  refer  to 
the  hard-worked  men  and  women  who  were  taking  a  vaca- 
tion, but  to  the  leisured  young  people,  to  whom  this  period 
was  the  most  serious  of  the  year,  and  filled  with  the  most 
strenuous  exertion.  They  did  not,  of  course,  thoroughly 
enjoy  it,  for  we  are  too  complicated  to  be  content  with 
mere  exercise.  Civilization  has  bound  us  too  closely  with 
our  brethren  for  any  one  of  us  to  be  long  happy  in  the  culti- 
vation of  mere  individual  force  or  in  the  accumulation  of 
mere  muscular  energy. 

With  Whitechapel  constantly  in  mind,  it  was  difficult 
not  to  advise  these  young  people  to  use  some  of  this  muscu- 


FILIAL  RELATIONS  381 

lar  energy  of  which  they  were  so  proud,  in  cleaning  neg- 
lected alleys  and  paving  soggy  streets.  Their  stores  of 
enthusiasm  might  stir  to  energy  the  listless  men  and  women 
of  East  London  and  utilize  latent  social  forces.  The 
exercise  would  be  quite  as  good,  the  need  of  endurance  as 
great,  the  care  for  proper  dress  and  food  as  important ; 
but  the  motives  for  action  would  be  turned  from  selfish 
ones  into  social  ones.  Such  an  appeal  would  doubtless 
be  met  with  a  certain  response  from  the  young  people, 
but  would  never  be  countenanced  by  their  families  for  an 
instant. 

Fortunately  a  beginning  has  been  made  in  another 
direction,  and  a  few  parents  have  already  begun  to  consider 
even  their  little  children  in  relation  to  society  as  well  as 
to  the  family.  The  young  mothers  who  attend  "Child 
Study"  classes  have  a  larger  notion  of  parenthood  and 
expect  given  characteristics  from  their  children,  at  certain 
ages  and  under  certain  conditions.  They  quite  calmly 
watch  the  various  attempts  of  a  child  to  assert  his  individ- 
uality, which  so  often  takes  the  form  of  opposition  to 
the  wishes  of  the  family  and  to  the  rule  of  the  house- 
hold. They  recognize  as  acting  under  the  same  law  of 
development  the  little  child  of  three  who  persistently  runs 
away  and  pretends  not  to  hear  his  mother's  voice,  the  boy 
of  ten  who  violently,  although  temporarily,  resents  control 
of  any  sort,  and  the  grown-up  son  who,  by  an  individual- 
ized and  trained  personality,  is  drawn  into  pursuits  and 
interests  quite  alien  to  those  of  his  family. 

This  attempt  to  take  the  parental  relation  somewhat 
away  from  mere  personal  experience,  as  well  as  the  in- 
creasing tendency  of  parents  to  share  their  children's 
pursuits  and  interests,  will  doubtless  finally  result  in  a 
better  understanding  of  the  social  obligation.     The  under- 


382  MODERN  ESSAYS 

standing,  which  results  from  identity  of  interests,  would 
seem  to  confirm  the  conviction  that  in  the  complicated  life 
of  to-day  there  is  no  education  so  admirable  as  that  educa- 
tion which  comes  from  participation  in  the  constant  trend 
of  events.  There  is  no  doubt  that  most  of  the  misunder- 
standings of  life  are  due  to  partial  intelligence,  because  our 
experiences  have  been  so  unlike  that  we  cannot  compre- 
hend each  other.  The  old  difficulties  incident  to  the  clash 
of  two  codes  of  morals  must  drop  away,  as  the  experiences 
of  various  members  of  the  family  become  larger  and  more 
identical. 

At  the  present  moment,  however,  many  of  those  difficul- 
ties still  exist  and  may  be  seen  all  about  us.  In  order  to 
illustrate  the  situation  baldly,  and  at  the  same  time  to  put 
it  dramatically,  it  may  be  well  to  take  an  instance  con- 
cerning which  we  have  no  personal  feeling.  The  tragedy 
of  King  Lear  has  been  selected,  although  we  have  been 
accustomed  so  long  to  give  him  our  sympathy  as  the 
victim  of  the  ingratitude  of  his  two  older  daughters,  and  of 
the  apparent  coldness  of  Cordelia,  that  we  have  not 
sufficiently  considered  the  weakness  of  his  fatherhood, 
revealed  by  the  fact  that  he  should  get  himself  into  so  en- 
tangled and  unhappy  a  relation  to  all  of  his  children.  In 
our  pity  for  Lear,  we  fail  to  analyze  his  character.  The 
King  on  his  throne  exhibits  utter  lack  of  self-control.  The 
King  in  the  storm  gives  way  to  the  same  emotion,  in  repin- 
ing over  the  wickedness  of  his  children,  which  he  formerly 
exhibited  in  his  indulgent  treatment  of  them. 

It  might  be  illuminating  to  discover  wherein  he  had 
failed,  and  why  his  old  age  found  him  roofless  in  spite  of 
the  fact  that  he  strenuously  urged  the  family  claim  with 
his  whole  conscience.  At  the  opening  of  the  drama  he 
sat  upon  his  throne,  ready  for  the  enjoyment  which  an 


FILIAL  RELATIONS  383 

indulgent  parent  expects  when  he  has  given  gifts  to  his 
children.  From  the  two  elder,  the  responses  for  the 
division  of  his  lands  were  graceful  and  fitting,  but  he  longed 
to  hear  what  Cordelia,  his  youngest  and  best  beloved 
child,  would  say.  He  looked  toward  her  expectantly,  but 
instead  of  delight  and  gratitude  there  was  the  first  dawn 
of  character.  Cordelia  made  the  awkward  attempt  of 
an  untrained  soul  to  be  honest  and  scrupulously  to  ex- 
press her  inmost  feeling.  The  king  was  baffled  and  dis- 
tressed by  this  attempt  at  self-expression.  It  was  new  to 
him  that  his  daughter  should  be  moved  by  a  principle 
obtained  outside  himself,  which  even  his  imagination 
could  not  follow ;  that  she  had  caught  the  notion  of  an 
existence  in  which  her  relation  as  a  daughter  played  but  a 
part.  She  was  transformed  by  a  dignity  which  recast  her 
speech  and  made  it  self-contained.  She  found  herself 
in  the  sweep  of  a  feeling  so  large  that  the  immediate  loss  of 
a  kingdom  seemed  of  little  consequence  to  her.  Even  an 
act  which  might  be  construed  as  disrespect  to  her  father 
was  justified  in  her  eyes,  because  she  was  vainly  striving 
to  fill  out  this  larger  conception  of  duty.  The  test  which 
comes  sooner  or  later  to  many  parents  had  come  to  Lear,  to 
maintain  the  tenderness  of  the  relation  between  father  and 
child,  after  that  relation  had  become  one  between  adults, 
to  be  content  with  the  responses  made  by  the  adult  child 
to  the  family  claim,  while  at  the  same  time  she  responded 
to  the  claims  of  the  rest  of  life.  The  mind  of  Lear  was 
not  big  enough  for  this  test ;  he  failed  to  see  anything  but 
the  personal  slight  involved,  and  the  ingratitude  alone 
reached  him.  It  was  impossible  for  him  to  calmly  watch 
his  child  developing  beyond  the  stretch  of  his  own  mind  and 
sympathy. 

That  a  man  should  be  so  absorbed  in  his  own  indignation 


384  MODERN  ESSAYS 

as  to  fail  to  apprehend  his  child's  thought,  that  he  should, 
lose  his  affection  in  his  anger,  simply  reveals  the  fact 
that  his  own  emotions  are  dearer  to  him  than  his  sense  of 
paternal  obligation.  Lear  apparently  also  ignored  the 
common  ancestry  of  Cordelia  and  himself,  and  forgot  her 
royal  inheritance  of  magnanimity.  He  had  thought  of 
himself  so  long  as  a  noble  and  indulgent  father  that  he 
had  lost  the  faculty  by  which  he  might  perceive  himself 
in  the  wrong.  Even  in  the  midst  of  the  storm  he  declared 
himself  more  sinned  against  than  sinning.  He  could 
believe  any  amount  of  kindness  and  goodness  of  himself, 
but  could  imagine  no  fidelity  on  the  part  of  Cordelia  unless 
she  gave  him  the  sign  he  demanded. 

At  length  he  suffered  many  hardships ;  his  spirit  was 
buffeted  and  broken ;  he  lost  his  reason  as  well  as  his 
kingdom  ;  but  for  the  first  time  his  experience  was  identi- 
cal with  the  experience  of  the  men  around  him,  and  he 
came  to  a  larger  conception  of  life.  He  put  himself  in 
the  place  of  "the  poor  naked  wretches,"  and  unexpectedly 
found  healing  and  comfort.  He  took  poor  Tim  in  his  arms 
from  a  sheer  desire  for  human  contact  and  animal  warmth, 
a  primitive  and  genuine  need,  through  which  he  suddenly 
had  a  view  of  the  world  which  he  had  never  had  from  his 
throne,  and  from  this  moment  his  heart  began  to  turn 
toward  Cordelia. 

In  reading  the  tragedy  of  King  Lear,  Cordelia  receives  a 
full  share  of  our  censure.  Her  first  words  are  cold,  and  we 
are  shocked  by  her  lack  of  tenderness.  Why  should  she 
ignore  her  father's  need  for  indulgence,  and  be  unwilling 
to  give  him  what  he  so  obviously  craved  ?  We  see  in  the 
old  king  "the  over-mastering  desire  of  being  beloved, 
selfish,  and  yet  characteristic  of  the  selfishness  of  a  loving 
and  kindly  nature  alone."     His  eagerness  produces  in  us  a 


FILIAL  RELATIONS  385 

strange  pity  for  him,  and  we  are  impatient  that  his  young- 
est and  best-beloved  child  cannot  feel  this,  even  in  the 
midst  of  her  search  for  truth  and  her  newly  acquired 
sense  of  a  higher  duty.  It  seems  to  us  a  narrow  concep- 
tion that  would  break  thus  abruptly  with  the  past  and 
would  assume  that  her  father  had  no  part  in  the  new  life. 
We  want  to  remind  her  "that  pity,  memory,  and  faithful- 
ness are  natural  ties,"  and  surely  as  much  to  be  prized  as  is 
the  development  of  her  own  soul.  We  do  not  admire  the 
Cordelia  who  through  her  self-absorption  deserts  her 
father,  as  we  later  admire  the  same  woman  who  comes 
back  from  France  that  she  may  include  her  father  in  her 
happiness  and  freer  life.  The  first  had  selfishly  taken 
her  salvation  for  herself  alone,  and  it  was  not  until  her 
conscience  had  developed  in  her  new  life  that  she  was 
driven  back  to  her  father,  where  she  perished,  drawn  into 
the  cruelty  and  wrath  which  had  now  become  objective 
and  tragic. 

Historically  considered,  the  relation  of  Lear  to  his  children 
was  archaic  and  barbaric,  indicating  merely  the  beginning 
of  a  family  life  since  developed.  His  paternal  expression 
was  one  of  domination  and  indulgence,  without  the  per- 
ception of  the  needs  of  his  children,  without  any  antici- 
pation of  their  entrance  into  a  wider  life,  or  any  belief  that 
they  could  have  a  worthy  life  apart  from  him.  If  that 
rudimentary  conception  of  family  life  ended  in  such 
violent  disaster,  the  fact  that  we  have  learned  to  be  more 
decorous  in  our  conduct  does  not  demonstrate  that  by 
following  the  same  line  of  theory  we  may  not  reach  a  like 
misery. 

Wounded  affection  there  is  sure  to  be,  but  this  could  be 
reduced  to  a  modicum  if  we  could  preserve  a  sense  of  the 
relation  of  the  individual  to  the  family,  and  of  the  latter 
2c 


386  MODERN  ESSAYS 

to  society,  and  if  we  had  been  given  a  code  of  ethics  dealing 
with  these  larger  relationships,  instead  of  a  code  designed 
to  apply  so  exclusively  to  relationships  obtaining  only 
between  individuals. 

Doubtless  the  clashes  and  jars  which  we  all  feel  most 
keenly  are  those  which  occur  when  two  standards  of  morals, 
both  honestly  held  and  believed  in,  are  brought  sharply 
together.  The  awkwardness  and  constraint  we  experi- 
ence when  two  standards  of  conventions  and  manners 
clash  but  feebly  prefigure  this  deeper  difference. 


THE  mONY  OF  NATURE  ^ 

BY 

Richard  Burton 

In  the  delightful  Foreword  to  his  "  Little  Essays  in  Literature  and 
Life,"  the  volume  from  which  the  following  essay  is  taken,  Professor  Burton 
tells  us  that  the  ambition  of  the  familiar  essayist  is  "to  speak  wisdom 
albeit  debonairly,  to  be  thought-provoking  without  heaviness,  and  help- 
ful without  didacticism."  Here  he  wishes  to  have  the  reader  feel  that 
there  is  a  communion  with  nature  so  sweet  and  strong  and  sustaining 
that  it  is  counted  among  our  most  precious  experiences.  That  is  his 
objective  point.  In  the  deductive  type  of  essay  that  sentence  would  be 
placed  very  early,  illustrated  and  explained,  and  the  attention  would 
be  focussed  finally  upon  one  typical  phase.  Notice  that  here  exactly 
the  contrary  method  is  followed.  The  essay  begins  with  an  anecdote, 
illustrating  the  irony  of  character.  Then  follows  a  statement  of  the 
irony  of  nature.  She  crushes  not  individuals  only,  but  whole  cities. 
The  pessimism  induced  by  such  a  calamity  is  staggering.  But  it  may  be 
due  to  a  false  valuation.  And  there  is  a  communion  with  nature.  In 
proportion,  the  last  paragraph  occupies  over  one  quarter  of  the  space. 
The  value  of  this  method  lies  in  the  fact  that  the  reader,  beginning 
easily,  is  carried  to  a  broad  conception.  The  author,  as  it  were,  forces 
the  reader  to  make  his  own  generalization.  Consequently,  though  more 
difficult,  it  is  more  effective  than  the  other  forms. 

In  his  delightful  reminiscences,  "Thirty  Years  of 
Paris,"  Alphonse  Daudet  tells  of  his  companionship  with 
Turgenev  in  those  memorable  evenings  when  he,  Goncourt, 
Zola,  and  the  mighty  Russian  ate  supper  together  and 
talked  of  literature  and  life.  He  recalls  how  Turgenev 
gave   him   every   evidence   of   friendship    and    affection; 

1  From  "Little  Essays  in  Literature  and  Life,"  by  permission  of 
The  Century  Co. 

387 


388  MODERN  ESSAYS 

but  long  after  his  death,  Daudet  read  certain  words  of 
his  friend,  wherein  the  author  of  "Fathers  and  Sons" 
sneers  at  his  French  confrere  as  "the  lowest  of  my  kind." 
And  Daudet,  with  that  wonderful  Gallic  lightness  of  touch 
which  hides  yet  reveals  the  deep  things  of  the  heart, 
sighs  over  the  disillusionment,  and  exclaims :  "  I  can  see 
him  in  my  house,  at  my  table,  gentle,  affectionate,  kissing 
my  children.  I  have  in  my  possession  many  exquisite, 
warm-hearted  letters  from  him.  And  this  was  what  lay 
concealed  beneath  that  kindly  smile.  Good  heavens ! 
How  strange  life  is,  and  how  true  that  charming  word  of 
the  Greek  language,  eironeia  T' 

Yet  this  is  the  irony  of  character  and  circumstance. 
There  is  in  life  one  deeper  yet  and  more  terrible :  the 
irony  of  Nature.  You  feel  that  the  Daudet  episode  might 
possibly  be  straightened  out,  that  "the  faith  between 
friends  "  may  haply  be  restored.  But  the  other  is  different, 
hopeless.  Hawthorne's  "The  Ambitious  Guest"  narrates 
how  a  family  of  cheerful  folk  sit  talking  with  a  guest  for 
the  night,  in  their  house  far  up  in  the  White  Mountains, 
and  discourse  of  human  fate  and  their  particular  desires. 
Of  a  sudden  they  are  interrupted  by  a  sound  of  awful 
omen;  there  is  a  landslide,  and  when  they  realize  that 
destruction  is  upon  them  they  rush  forth  from  the  house 
to  seek  a  place  of  safety,  only  to  be  buried  under  the 
avalanche,  one  and  all.  But  the  house  in  which  they 
sat  escapes  scot  free.  Had  they  remained  about  the  fire 
and  continued  their  friendly  converse,  they  would  not  have 
perished.  Acting  for  what  seemed  to  be  the  best,  they 
were  ruthlessly  exterminated,  since  the  processes  of  Nature, 
represented  in  this  case  by  the  landslide,  pay  no  heed  to 
that  petty  creature,  man,  and  move  on  their  mysterious 
ways,  as  if  in  mockery  of  his  ineptness  and  ignorance  of 


THE   IRONY   OF  NATURE  389 

the  fall  of  events.  At  such  a  juncture,  a  Plato,  a  Caesar  or 
a  Shakspere  is  as  helpless  as  the  commonest  of  the  earth. 

Here  is  that  irony  which,  sooner  or  later,  confronts  every 
thoughtful  mind  and  no  doubt  often  shakes  the  very 
foundations  of  faith.  And  surely  it  is  far  sadder  than  the 
irony  which  inheres  in  character,  because  it  is,  or  seems, 
irremediable.  Millions  of  human  beings  in  the  world's 
history  have  taken  steps  to  the  best  of  their  judgment 
and  actuated  by  the  highest  motives,  only  to  be  precipi- 
tated into  calamity  and  to  lose  their  lives  in  a  manner  so 
disastrous  as  to  make  the  looker-on  shudder  with  horror. 
Nature,  magnificently  indifferent  to  the  animalcule  who 
for  a  brief  term  of  time  struts  and  prates  upon  the  earth, 
conducts  her  business  according  to  great  general  laws, 
utterly  refusing  to  consider  the  convenience,  comfort,  or 
welfare  of  such  an  unimportant  item  in  the  teeming 
universe.  Often  the  ironic  scene  is  on  a  scale  of  epic 
grandeur.  Not  men  as  individuals,  but  whole  cities  go 
down  to  death  :  Pompeii  lies  buried  beneath  the  lava,  San 
Francisco  goes  up  in  smoke,  Messina  is  shaken  into  ruins. 

At  first,  the  spectacle  of  this  cruel  unconcern  of  Nature 
is  of  staggering  effect ;  that  sometimes  it  breeds  pessimism 
can  well  be  understood.  How,  in  truth,  can  this  seemingly 
heartless  procedure  on  the  part  of  Nature  —  meaning  by 
the  word  a  personification  of  the  laws  and  processes  opera- 
tive in  the  physical  universe  as  observed  by  man  —  be 
explained,  so  that  we  may  return  to  the  soothing  thought 
that  not  a  sparrow  falls  unnoted,  and  that,  in  the  forever 
lovely  words  of  Coleridge, 

He  prayeth  best  who  loveth  best 
All  things  both  great  and  small ; 
For  the  dear  God  who  loveth  us. 
He  made  and  loveth  all. 


390  MODERN  ESSAYS 

Of  course,  all  such  inquiry  can  be  dismissed  on  the 
ground  that  man  is  not  intended  to  understand,  that  his 
limitations  make  mystery  inevitable,  and  that  faith  is 
thus  exercised  as  it  faces  the  vast  and  curious  antinomies 
of  human  life  and  the  course  of  Nature.  If  we  could 
comprehend  all,  there  were  no  proper  place  for  that 
spirit  of  trust  — ■  yea,  even  though  it  slay  us  !  —  which  is 
the  vety  basis  of  religion. 

Perhaps  another  thought  helps  a  little  when  one's  mood 
is  darkened  by  the  apparent  irony,  whether  of  man  or 
Nature.  Why  may  it  not  be  that  all  such  catastrophic 
occurrences  are  but  a  reminder  to  us  worldlings  of  the  false 
valuations  which  are  set  upon  life  ?  Since  it  is  natural  for 
all  to  die,  the  manner  of  going  is  secondary ;  and  so-called 
catastrophes  are,  as  a  rule,  horrible  to  the  observer  rather 
than  to  the  victim,  who  most  often  is  painlessly  and  in- 
stantly removed  from  consciousness.  But  even  if  we  con- 
ceded the  suffering,  it  still  remains  true  in  a  high  and 
holy  sense  that  nothing  evil  can  happen  to  a  good  man,  — 
worldly  e\'il,  yes,  in  plenty,  but  not  that  evil  which  is  the 
only  true  tragedy  to  the  philosopher :  spiritual  failure. 
HVhat  we  call  our  tragedies  are,  speaking  by  and  large, 
merely  violent  and  unexpected  interruptions  of  pleasure.) 
And  it  is  certainly  salutary  to  be  reminded,  although  in  a 
way  that  is  repellent,  that  one  whom  physical  disaster 
overcomes  can  yet  sleep  with  that  smile  upon  his  face 
which  is  a  sign  of  triumph,  and  the  certificate  of  a  rest 
well  won.  The  solemn  saying  of  the  Greek,  "call  no  man 
happy  until  he  is  dead,"  was  not  uttered  in  cheap  cynicism, 
but  had  in  mind  the  fact  that  each  day  until  the  end  is  a 
chance  for  the  spiritual  success  or  defeat ;  and  that,  there- 
fore, we  may  not  claim  the  victory  until  all  the  days  be 
numbered.     It  may  well  be,  therefore,  that  what  is  known 


THE  IRONY  OF  NATURE  391 

as  the  "pathetic  fallacy"  in  literature,  the  mood  of  loving 

trust  which  makes  Wordsworth  see  beneficent  intention 

in  "earth's  diurnal  course,"  and  sing  in  his  own  winsome 

way, 

One  impulse  from  a  vernal  wood 
May  teach  you  more  of  man. 
Of  moral  evil  and  of  good 
Than  all  the  sages  can, 

—  expresses  a  truth,  a  spiritual  fact,  deeper  than  any 
process  of  logic,  and  more  trustworthy  than  all  self- 
conscious  reasoning.  Explain  it  as  we  will,  and  whatever 
be  the  testimony  of  the  brain,  there  is,  as  countless  stricken 
souls  are  aware,  a  communion  with  Nature  so  sweet  and 
strong  and  sustaining  that  it  is  counted  among  our  most 
precious  experiences,  and,  once  over,  laid  away  in  the 
lavender  of  memory  forever.  And  when  we  no  longer  see 
through  a  glass  darkly,  but  face  to  face,  it  may  then 
become  plain  that  behind  the  grim  look  and  the  chastise- 
ment was  th6  benign  countenance  of  the  friend,  and  the 
unspeakable  yearning  of  the  mother  heart.  Irony,  in 
the  last  analysis,  may  resolve  itself  into  a  masked  good- 
will. 


ON  SEEING  TEN  BAD  PLAYS  ^ 

BY 

Frank  Moore  Colby 

Mr.  Colby  wishes  the  reader  to  make  the  generalization  that  the 
crude  state  of  the  drama  is  due  to  the  crudity  of  J:he  Americsin  public. 
Like  Professor  Burton,  he  starts  with  the  particular  fact  that  he  has 
just  seen  ten  bad  plays.  A  long  paragraph  is  devoted  to  an  analysis 
of  the  audiences.  A  long  paragraph,  including  the  succeeding  one  of 
illustration,  is  devoted  to  the  drama.  The  obvious  induction  is  that 
these  are  correlative.  Consequently  there  must  be  poor  plays,  since  the 
American  public  is  crude.  In  contrast  with  Professor  Burton's  subtle 
and  allusive  style,  Mr.  Colby  hits  with  sledge-hammer  blows.  His 
witty  phrases  are  not  subtle,  but  they  are  most  effective.  He  holds  the 
attention,  not  as  does  Professor  Burton  with  an  aroma  of  lavender, 
but  with  humorous  over-statement.  You  laugh  —  but  you  also  remember 
the  conclusion. 

Had  I  an  artist's  soul  I  should  be  somewhat  soured  by 
what  I  have  gone  through.  As  it  is,  I  have  fought  down 
all  bitterness  of  heart  by  the  aid  of  a  little  philosophy. 
A  man  needs  philosophy  more  for  the  commonplaces 
of  this  world  than  he  does  for  its  miseries,  ennui  being 
a  steadier  foe  than  pain.  I  therefore  offer  my  philosophy 
of  the  commonplace  in  the  American  drama  and  literature. 
It  is  not  deep,  but  it  is  at  least  bland,  and  it  may  help  to 
allay  irritation  in  certain  moods.  There  is  enough  of 
polished  sarcasm,  and  of  cynicism  there  is  already  too 

'  From  "Imaginary  Obligations."  Copyright,  1904,  by  Dodd,  Mead 
&  Co.     By  permission  of  the  author  and  publishers. 

392 


ON   SEEING   TEN   BAD   PLAYS  393 

much.  What  we  need  is  something  that  will  aid  us  in 
matters  of  routine. 

In  the  first  place  I  swear  by  all  that  is  holiest  in  democ- 
racy —  by  the  boiled  onions  of  the  plain  people,  by  their 
even  plainer  wives,  by  the  firesides  of  Tom,  Dick  and 
Harry,  by  the  sanctity  of  the  bigger  figure,  by  the  sacred 
whoops  of  the  majority  —  that  the  usual  man  is  not  to 
blame  for  wanting  the  usual  thing.  Hallcainery  has  its 
place  in  the  world.  Indeed,  I  believe  it  altogether  healthy, 
hopeful,  and  respectable,  and  if  I  thought  otherwise  I 
should  lose  all  faith  in  representative  institutions.  There 
are  a  few  who  never  weary  of  saying  spiteful  things  about 
literary  mediocrity.  They  have  no  patience  with  develop- 
ment or  kindliness  for  beginnings ;  they  would  condemn 
every  tadpole  as  a  sort  of  apostate  frog.  Why  are  they  so 
petulant  with  majorities.?  Humanity  would  pine  away 
on  masterpieces ;  yet  many  would  have  you  think  that  the 
journey  from  savagery  to  high  art  must  be  made  in  total 
silence,  with  nothing  to  read  on  the  way.  Our  plays  are 
relatively  good,  being  no  further  below  the  drama  than 
they  are  above  tomtoms  and  human  sacrifice.  Blessed 
is  vulgar  "reading-matter,"  for  without  it  people  might 
eat  one  another.  No  race  ever  sinks  from  Hallcainery 
into  barbarism;  it  rises  from  barbarism  to  Hallcainery, 
whence  in  time  it  may  emerge. 

And  who  shall  say  that  our  plays  are  not  as  good  as  our 
politics,  or  our  writers  as  our  Senators  ?  Do  we  expect 
brilliancy  in  our  statesmen  ?  We  are  thankful  enough  in 
this  country  for  a  good  candidate,  let  who  will  be  clever. 
If  a  large  city  can,  after  intense  intellectual  efforts,  choose 
for  its  mayor  a  man  who  merely  will  not  steal  from  it, 
we  consider  it  a  triumph  of  the  suffrage.  So  moderate 
are  our  expectations  in  this  field  that  if  ordinary  intelli- 


394  MODERN  ESSAYS 

gence  be  superadded,  it  seems  a  piece  of  luck.  We  are 
overjoyed  at  any  sign  that  the  nation's  choice  is  up  to 
the  nation's  average  ;  and  time  and  again  you  hear  a  thing 
called  statesmanlike,  which  in  private  life  would  be  just  on 
the  safe  side  of  sanity.  Mr.  McKinley's  refusal  of  a  third 
term  was  regarded  as  a  masterstroke  of  wisdom,  and  we 
have  all  read  praises  of  Mr.  Roosevelt's  achievements 
which  are  deserved  as  well  by  anybody  we  ever  knew. 
Nobody  praises  us  when  we  come  home  sober  of  an  eve- 
ning, or  speak  a  good  average  sentence,  or  draw  a  good 
average  breath ;  and  sturdy  virtues  that  keep  us  out  of 
the  police  court  for  weeks  at  a  time  are  not  even  men- 
tioned by  the  family.  But  by  these  negative  signs  you 
can  often  tell  a  statesman,  for  politics  is  a  place  of  humble 
hopes  and  strangely  modest  requirements,  where  all  are 
good  who  are  not  criminal  and  all  are  wise  who  are  not 
ridiculously  otherwise.  Any  one  who  is  used  to  the  acci- 
dents of  majorities  should  acquire  this  habit  of  mind.  But 
the  literary  and  artistic  people  persist  in  the  most  exorbi- 
tant demands  at  a  point  where  the  least  should  be  logically 
expected,  that  is,  the  tastes  of  a  crowd.  And  if  the 
majority  is  against  them,  they  scold  it  and  the  thing  it 
chooses,  and  having  lost  their  tempers  and  tired  their 
friends,  and  troubled  a  number  of  honest  creatures  who 
have  not  the  least  idea  what  it  is  all  about,  they  feel  that 
they  have  been  doing  wonders  for  what  they  call  artistic 
standards.  Right  enough  views,  but  the  wrong  occasion. 
We  expect  only  peace  in  a  cable  car ;  for  ecstasies  we  must 
look  somewhere  else. 

If  high  art  deserves  its  ecstasies,  low  art  deserves  its 
consolations;  and  if  there  is  any  way  of  making  better 
terms  with  humdrum  and  escaping  the  spasms  of  reform, 
it  is  our  plain  business  to  find  it.     St.  Paul  said,  keep  the 


ON  SEEING  TEN  BAD  PLAYS  395 

body  under.  I  say  unto  you,  keep  the  mind  under  on 
seeing  American  plays.  Be  "contentit  wi'  little  and  canty 
wi'  mair" ;  smile  though  the  smile  looks  sometimes  like  a 
rictus  ;  get  the  point  of  view  of  the  original  erect  ape-man 
{pithecanthropus  eredus) ;  and  if  at  any  time  you  are 
afflicted  by  a  play  that  is  particularly  bad  and  popular, 
consider  the  growth  of  our  manufactures  and  sing  "My 
Country,  'Tis  of  Thee."  To  express  one's  own  tastes  is 
reasonable,  but  to  worry  too  much  over  other  people's 
leads  to  a  useless  violence.  Some  wish  to  murder  Hall 
Caine.  I  believe  it  would  be  inexpedient  to  do  so,  and 
possibly  wrong.  I  believe  Mr.  Clyde  Fitch  as  truly  rep- 
resents New  York  as  Senator  Peffer  did  Kansas  or  Mr. 
Bryan  the  West ;  and  the  more  I  see  of  audiences  the  surer 
I  am  that  to  massacre  is  the  only  way  to  reform. 

Unwilling  to  be  dependent  longer  on  the  bounty  of  her 
rich  guardian  the  high-spirited  ingenue  in  light  blue  leaves 
her  luxurious  home  to  teach  school  in  a  distant  village. 
Being  very  much  of  a  lady  she  is  obliged  to  walk  as 
if  the  stage  floor  were  red  hot,  and  to  speak  in  a  high 
trilling  voice  with  a  foreign  accent  —  a  course  that  in- 
stantly wins  for  her  the  love  of  every  one  she  meets.  But 
the  guardian  comes  to  urge  her  to  return  to  what,  as  a 
gentleman  of  wealth  and  refinement,  he  is  obliged  to  call 
"me  home."  They  are  talking  alone,  but  as  soon. as  she 
begins  to  explain  that  self-respect  will  not  permit  her  to 
remain  with  him,  now  that  she  knows  the  fortune  is  not 
really  hers,  the  violins  play  softly  and  from  every  door  and 
alley  the  villagers  come  pouring  in.  A  sentimental  con- 
versation between  people  they  barely  know  will  draw 
villagers  to  the  spot  for  miles  around.  So  when  the  heroine 
and  her  guardian  are  at  their  saddest  everybody  is  punctu- 
ally in  place.     It  is  all  very  exasperating,  and  the  superior 


396  MODERN  ESSAYS 

person,  who  has  no  business  to  be  there,  will  ask  you  if  it  is 
Art.  It  is  not  Art,  but  the  stout  lady  in  the  seat  behind 
you  is  nearly  bursting  with  sobs,  and  a  large  number  of 
pocket  handkerchiefs  are  fluttering  in  the  aisles.  With 
this  particular  audience  Art  could  do  nothing  at  all. 
Then  comes  humor  in  its  more  awful  forms.  Thrice- 
explained  humor,  with  long  waits  for  the  effects ;  humor 
accompanied  by  the  hilarious  roars  of  the  man  who  made 
it.  And  for  half  an  hour  there  is  as  genuine  enjoyment 
as  you  ever  saw,  and  at  the  very  heaviest  of  horse-plays 
the  stout  lady  behind  you  says,  "Isn't  that  rich?"  Ele- 
vate the  stage?  Perhaps  you  can,  but  it  will  be  a  good 
many  generations  before  those  people  will  be  ready  for  it. 
A  quarter  of  an  inch  elevation  would  spoil  the  whole 
thing  for  them. 

There  is  plenty  of  room  for  a  good  theatre,  but  there  is 
no  use  in  hoping  that  it  will  draw  away  the  crowds  from 
the  class  of  plays  that  are  now  successful.  These  plays 
will  continue,  or  others  just  as  bad.  They  are  wonder- 
fully adapted  to  the  people  who  go  to  see  them,  and  as 
time  goes  on  this  element  of  the  population  is  bound  to  in- 
crease. There  are  more  below  than  above  them.  It  is 
absurd  for  the  superior  person  to  ask  them  if  it  is  Art. 
He  would  not  take  on  like  that  about  a  ball  game  or  a 
merry-go-round.  And  at  a  country  fair  or  sociable  or 
"sugar  eat"  he  would  not  be  so  savage  about  bad  taste. 
But  a  simple,  hearty  New  York  audience  abandoning  itself 
to  the  innocent,  if  rude,  pleasures  of  the  average  play  has  no 
mercy  from  him  for  the  amazing  reason  that  it  is  not  Art. 
As  if  simplicity  required  a  background  of  hen  roosts  and 
apple  orchards  and  all  primitive  men  tucked  their  trousers 
in  their  boots.  He  is  a  child  of  nature,  the  New  York 
playgoer,  even  if  he  is  not  picturesque,  and  he  has  an 


ON  SEEING  TEN  BAD  PLAYS  397 

honest  and  wholesome  regard  for  whatever  is  atrocious 
in  art.  Put  him  on  the  diet  of  the  superior  person  and 
he  would  soon  starve. 

There  must  be  bad  plays.  You  cannot  civilize  the  whole 
crowd  of  us  at  once,  and  those  hideous  early  stages  of 
artistic  appreciation  cannot  be  skipped.  There  is  much 
cheerless  writing  on  a  subject  that  from  certain  points 
of  view  is  almost  cheerful.  Compare  the  worst  successful 
New  York  play  with  a  war  dance  or  with  certain  Zulu 
sports.  Things  have  greatly  improved.  How  did  the 
same  class  use  to  amuse  themselves  "^  As  to  moral  lessons, 
the  poorest  of  successful  plays  is  remarkably  vigorous 
and  insistent.  No  sign  of  decay  there.  In  fact,  the  worse 
the  art  the  more  blatant  the  moral.  No  New  York 
playgoer  is  likely  to  forget  for  one  moment  that  virtue 
is  an  admirable  thing.  Is  it  not  cheerful  to  think  of  the 
big  audiences  going  night  after  night  to  have  the  same 
elementary  moral  lessons  pounded  in  ?  You  want  your 
moral  lesson  served  artistically  or  you  will  not  take  it 
at  all.  Perhaps  you  would  as  lief  see  the  wicked  triumph 
for  a  change.  But  these  people  are  content  with  virtue 
in  the  raw.  They  are  not  after  new  ideas,  but  want 
some  one  to  say  a  good  word  for  those  they  have  already. 
On  no  account  must  you  meddle  with  their  minds. 

The  moral  of  all  this  is  that  one  ought  to  try  and  see  the 
bright  side  of  the  situation,  if  such  a  thing  is  to  be  found, 
and  suppress  those  murderous  feelings  toward  what  after 
all  is  a  worthy  class  of  citizens  and  good  building  material 
for  the  state.  In  spite  of  artistic  merit  and  intelligence 
good  plays  may  succeed,  and  some  day  the  experiment 
will  be  tried  on  a  large  scale ;  but  in  the  meanwhile  all  the 
philosophy  that  you  can  summon  and  patience  with  those 
who   like   the   plays    they   have.     The   undiscriminating 


398  MODERN  ESSAYS 

benignity  of  audiences  almost  drives  you  mad.  Why 
do  they  not  rise  from  their  places  and  burn  and  slay? 
How  easy  to  lynch  the  manager,  if  they  only  knew.  But 
they  are  having  a  good  time  for  all  your  splutter  about  Art, 
and  if  you  can  see  any  signs  of  demoralization  in  their 
pleasant  moon  faces  you  are  a  cynic  at  heart.  For  what- 
ever our  stage  is,  it  supplies  the  unseasoned  food  that  is 
relished  in  the  lusty  infancy  of  Art. 


A  STEPDAUGHTER  OF  THE   PRAIRIE  ^ 

BY 

Margaret  Lynn 

Quite  another  type  of  essay  from  those  preceding  is  that  in  which  the 
thought  is  subordinated  to  the  emotion.  In  such  an  essay  the  writer  tries 
to  reproduce  the  impression  or  series  of  impressions  caused  upon  him  by 
scenes  or  incidents.  Naturally,  therefore,  there  can  be  no  logical  rela- 
tion between  paragraphs;  what  relation  there  is  must  be  emotional. 
Thus  Miss  Lynn's  "  Stepdaughter  of  the  Prairie  "  is  a  record  of  certain 
soul  experiences,  vague  imaginings  of  childish  dreams.  The  effort  to 
transform  the  prairie  into  the  landscape  of  Tennyson  is  quaintly  pa- 
thetic, —  to  find  there  alien  beauty  and,  in  the  attempt,  to  overlook  the 
wonder  that  was  no  wonder  because  it  was  always  there !  And  the 
trees  on  her  horizon  spelled  1-i-f-e. 

Far  away  on  the  almost  bare  line  of  the  prairie  horizon  a 
group  of  trees  used  to  show.  There  was  a  tall  one,  and  a 
short  one,  and  then  a  tallish  crooked  one  and  another  short 
one.  And  to  my  childish  eyes  they  spelled  1-i-f-e,  as 
plainly  as  any  word  in  my  reader  was  spelled.  They  were 
the  point  that  most  fascinated  me  as  I  knelt  at  the  upstairs 
window,  with  my  elbows  on  the  sill  and  my  chin  on  my 
folded  arms.  I  don't  know  when  I  first  noticed  them, 
for  they  had  been  there  always,  so  far  as  I  could  remember, 
a  scanty  little  bit  of  fringe  on  a  horizon  that  was  generally 
clear  and  bare.  There  were  tips  of  other  woods  farther  to 
the  south,  woods  that  were  slightly  known  to  me;    but 

^  From  "A  Stepdaughter  of  the  Prairie,"  by  permission  of  the 
author  and  of  The  Macmillan  Co. 

399 


400  MODERN   ESSAYS 

this  group  of  trees  at  the  very  limit  of  seeing  appeared  to 
lie  beyond  the  knowledge  of  anyone.  Even  on  the  after- 
noons when  I  was  allowed  to  go  with  my  father  on  some 
long  ride,  and  we  drove  and  drove  and  drove,  we  never 
came  in  sight  of  it.  Yet,  when  I  next  went  upstairs  and 
looked  from  the  window,  there  it  stood  against  the  sky. 

I  had  no  sense  of  making  an  allegory  out  of  it.  At  that 
age  to  the  fairy-tale-fed  child,  the  line  between  allegory 
and  reality  is  scarcely  perceptible,  anyway.  The  Word 
on  the  horizon  was  only  a  matter  of  course  to  me.  An 
older  person,  had  it  occurred  to  me  to  mention  the  matter, 
would  perhaps  have  seen  something  significant,  even 
worthy  of  sentimental  remark,  in  the  child's  spelling  out 
life  on  her  far  horizon.  But  to  me,  mystery  as  it  was, 
it  was  also  a  matter  of  fact ;  there  it  stood,  and  that  was 
all.  Yet  it  was  also  a  romance,  a  sort  of  unformulated 
promise.  It  was  related  to  the  far  distant,  to  the  remote 
in  time,  to  the  thing  that  was  some  day  to  be  known. 
So  I  rested  my  chin  on  my  little  arms  and  watched. 

I  suppose  the  fact  that  the  trees  were  evidently  big  and 
old  —  ours  were  still  young  and  small  —  and  perhaps  a 
part  of  some  woods,  was  their  greatest  interest  to  me. 
For  no  one  can  picture  what  the  woods  mean  to  the  prairie 
child.  They  are  a  glimpse  of  dream-things,  an  illustra- 
tion of  poems  read,  a  mystery  of  undefined  possibilities. 
To  pass  through  our  scant  bits  of  woods,  even,  was  an 
excursion  into  a  strange  world.  From  places  on  the  road 
to  town  we  could  see  pieces  of  timber.  And  on  some 
blessed  occasions  when  a  muddy  hollow  was  impassable 
or  when  the  Howell  Bridge,  the  impermanent  structure  of 
a  prairie  country,  was  out,  we  went  around  through  the 
Crossley  woods.  That  was  an  experience !  The  depth  of 
greenness  —  the    prairie    had    nothing    like    it.     I   think 


A  STEPDAUGHTER  OF  THE  PRAIRIE        401 

that  my  eyes  were  born  tired  of  the  prairie,  ungrateful 
little  soul  that  I  was. 

And  the  summer  shadows  in  the  woods  were  marvelous. 
The  shadow  of  the  prairie  was  that  of  a  passing  cloud,  or 
the  square  shade  of  some  building,  deepest  at  noonday. 
But  the  green  depth  of  the  woods'  shadows,  the  softly 
moving  light  and  shade,  were  a  wonderful  thing.  To  me 
these  trips  put  all  probability  on  a  new  basis.  Out  on 
the  bare  prairie,  under  the  shining  sun,  stories  were  stories, 
even  the  dearest  of  them  inventions.  But  in  these  shady 
depths,  where  my  eyes  were  led  on  from  green  space 
through  green  space  to  a  final  remote  dimness,  anything 
might  be  true.  Fiction  and  tradition  took  on  a  reality 
that  the  glaring  openness  would  not  allow.  Things  that 
were  different  might  happen  in  a  wood.  I  could  not  help 
expecting  a  new  experience.  But  it  never  came;  we 
passed  out  of  the  timber  to  the  prairie  again. 

But  at  least  expectation  had  been  stirred.  The  possi- 
bility that  something  might  happen  seemed  nearer.  For 
Romance  was  always  just  around  the  corner,  or  just  a  little 
way  ahead.  But  out  on  the  prairie  how  could  one  over- 
take it.f*  Where  could  the  unknown  lurk  in  that  great 
open  ?  The  woods  seemed  to  put  me  nearer  to  the  world 
on  whose  borders  I  always  hovered,  the  world  of  stories  and 
poems,  the  world  of  books  in  general.  The  whole  business 
of  life  in  those  first  reading  years  was  to  discover  in  the 
world  of  actual  events  enough  that  was  bookish  to  rec- 
oncile me  to  being  a  real  child  and  not  one  in  a  story. 
For  the  most  part,  aside  from  play,  which  was  a  thing  in 
itself  and  had  a  sane  importance  of  its  own,  the  realities 
of  life  were  those  that  had  their  counterpart  in  books. 
Whatever  I  found  in  reading,  especially  in  poetry,  I 
craved  for  my  own  experience. 
2d 


402  MODERN  ESSAYS 

There  is  no  bookislmcss  like  that  of  a  childish  reader, 
and  there  is  no  romanticism  like  that  of  a  child.  For  good 
or  ill,  I  was  steeped  in  both.  But  the  two  things,  books 
and  the  visible  world  that  the  sun  shone  in  and  the  prairie 
spread  out  in,  were  far  apart  and,  according  to  my  lights, 
incompatible.  I  always  had  a  suspicion  of  a  distinct  line 
between  literature  and  life,  at  least  life  as  I  knew  it,  far 
out  in  the  Missouri  valley.  Who  had  ever  heard  of  the 
Missouri  in  a  novel  or  a  poem  ?  No  essays  on  Literature 
,  and  Life  had  then  enlightened  me  as  to  their  relation ; 
I  didn't  know  that  they  had  any.  I  wished  that  life  could 
be  translated  into  terms  of  literature,  but  so  far  as  I 
could  see  I  had  to  do  it  myself  if  it  was  to  be  done. 

One  must  admit  that  it  was  little  less  than  tragic  to 
read  of  things  that  one  could  not  know,  and  to  live  among 
things  that  had  never  been  thought  worth  putting  into  a 
book.  What  did  it  avail  to  read  of  forests  and  crags  and 
waterfalls  and  castles  and  blue  seas,  when  I  could  know 
only  barbed-wire  fences  and  frame  buildings  and  prairie 
grass  ? 

Of  course  there  were  some  elements  of  our  living  in  which 
I  discovered  resemblances  to  what  I  had  found  in  my 
reading,  and  I  was  always  alert  to  these  things,  however 
small.  I  admired  my  pretty  young-lady  sister,  for  in- 
stance, but  I  admired  her  most  when  she  put  on  the  gar- 
ments of  romance ;  when  she  wore  a  filmy  white  muslin 
with  blue  ribbons,  a  costume  stamped  with  the  novelist's 
approval  from  the  earliest  times ;  or,  better  still,  a  velvet 
hat  with  a  long  plume  sweeping  down  over  her  hair.  For 
some  reason  I  cannot  explain  —  possibly  because  I  knew 
him  then  better  than  I  do  now  —  I  associated  her  appear- 
ance then  with  that  of  some  of  Scott's  heroines.  She  rose 
in  my  estimation  —  as  did  anyone  else  —  whenever  she 


A  STEPDAUGHTER  OF  THE  PRAIRIE        403 

managed,  however  unconsciously,  to  link  herself  with 
romance.  When  I  found  after  a  time,  as  I  grew  sophisti- 
cated, that  she  was  capable  of  exciting  those  feelings  in 
the  masculine  breast  that  are  depicted  with  some  care  in 
novels,  especially  in  those  which  were  forbidden  and 
which  I  was  obliged  to  read  by  snatches  and  in  incon- 
venient places,  I  gave  her  my  unqualified  approval  for 
all  time. 

As  I  have  said,  there  is  no  bookishness  like  that  of  a 
small  bookworm.  In  my  own  little  self  I  did  try  to  make 
a  point  of  contact  between  what  I  read  and  what  I  saw. 
I  wished  that  I  dared  to  use  the  language  of  books,  I 
did  occasionally  indulge  in  the  joy  of  borrowing  a  literary 
phrase.  To  the  grown-ups  who  heard  it,  it  was  doubtless 
a  bit  of  precocious  pedantry  or  an  effort  to  show  off.  I 
sometimes  saw  visitors  smile  at  one  another,  and  with 
sudden  amused  interest  try  to  draw  me  out ;  and  in 
stammering  prosaic  embarrassment  I  shrank  away,  no 
literary  fluency  left.  In  reality  I  was  not  showing  off.  I 
could  not  resist  the  shy  delicious  pleasure  of  making  my 
own  a  phrase  from  one  of  our  yellow-leaved  books  of 
poetry.  It  linked  reality  with  romance.  In  some  way  it 
seemed  to  make  me  free  of  the  world  of  folk  in  books, 
whose  company  I  craved.  The  elders  never  guessed 
the  tremor  with  which  I  ventured  on  my  phrase  from 
Tennyson  or  Lowell,  though  I  might  have  been  rolling  it 
under  my  tongue  for  half  an  hour.  But  it  would  not  do, 
I  saw,  to  use  the  sacred  language  lightly  before  unproved 
hearers,  so  I  generally  reserved  it  for  my  little  talkings  to 
myself.  I  had  my  small  code  of  phrases  for  my  private 
purposes,  and  a  list  of  expletives  rich  but  amazing.  They 
were  gleaned  all  the  way  from  Shakespeare  to  Scott; 
modern    writers     are    pitifully     meager    in    expletives. 


404  MODERN  ESSAYS 

But  that  was  after  all  a  thin  delight.  And  to  live  in  one 
kind  of  country  and  feed  on  the  literature  of  another 
kind  of  country  is  to  put  one  all  awry.  Why  was  there  no 
literature  of  the  prairie  ?  Whatever  there  was  did  not  come 
to  my  hands,  and  I  went  on  trying  to  translate  the  phe- 
nomena of  the  Missouri  valley  into  terms  of  other-land 
poetry.  But  even  such  things  as  we  had,  appeared  in 
unrecognizable  guise.  We  had  wild  flowers  in  abundance, 
but  unnamed.  And  what  are  botanical  names  to  a  child 
who  wants  to  find  foxglove  and  heather  and  bluebells  and 
Wordsworth's  daffodils  and  Burns 's  daisy  ?  W^e  —  I  was 
not  alone  in  this  quest  —  wanted  names  that  might  have 
come  out  of  a  book.  So  we  traced  imagined  resemblances, 
and  with  slight  encouragement  from  our  elders  -— -  they 
came  from  back  east  where  well-established  flowers  grow  — 
named  plants  where  we  could. 

There  was  a  ruffly  yellow  flower  with  a  vague  pretty 
odor,  which  we  forced  the  name  primrose  upon.  For  the 
primrose  was  yellow,  in  Wordsworth  at  least,  and  some 
agreeable  visitor  had  said  that  this  might  be  a  primrose, 
We  invented  spurious  pseudo-poetic  names,  trying  to 
pretend  that  they  were  as  good  as  the  names  we  read. 
There  was  a  pink  flower  of  good  intentions  but  no  faith- 
fulness, which  retired  at  the  approach  of  the  sun,  and 
which  we  christened  "morning  beauty."  We  had  other 
attempts  at  ready-made  folk  names,  crude  and  imitative, 
but  I  have  forgotten  them.  What  a  pity  the  prairie  did 
not  last  long  enough  to  fix  itself  and  the  things  that  be- 
longed to  it  in  a  sort  of  folk  phrases  !  At  least  we  ought  to 
have  had  enough  flower  lore  at  our  command  to  give  us  the 
sweet  real  names  that  may  have  belonged  to  its  blossoms  or 
their  relatives  in  other  lands.  When  we  did  learn  such  a 
name  for  some  half-despised  flower,  how  the  plant  leaped 


A  STEPDAUGHTER  OF  THE  PRAIRIE        405 

to  honor  and  took  on  a  halo  of  merit !  Some  elder  occa- 
sionally went  with  us  to  the  woods,  some  teacher,  perhaps, 
hungry  for  her  own  far-away  trees,  and  we  found  that 
we  really  had  a  genuine  sweet-william  and  dog-tooth 
violet  and  Jack-in-the-pulpit  and  May  apple,  and  even 
a  rare  diffident  yellow  violet.  They  were  no  more  beauti- 
ful than  our  gay,  nameless  flowers  of  the  open,  but  they 
grew  in  the  woods  and  they  had  names  with  an  atmosphere 
to  them.  In  our  eternal  quest  for  names,  some  learned 
visitor  —  for  we  had  many  a  visitor  of  every  kind  —  would 
give  us  crisp,  scientific  terms  loaded  with  consonants.  But 
how  could  one  love  a  flower  by  a  botanical  name  ? 

As  days  went  by,  however,  even  before  it  was  time  for 
me  to  be  taken  from  the  little  country  school  and  sent 
east  to  learn  other  things,  some  conditions  had  changed. 
Chance  seeds  of  different  flowers  and  grasses  came  floating 
west.  In  a  neighbor's  field  were  real  daisies  —  we  did  not 
know  then  that  they  were  not  Burns 's  —  brought  in  the 
seed  with  which  the  field  was  sown,  most  unwelcome  to 
the  farmer,  but  worshipped  by  us.  Our  own  groves, 
planted  before  we  children  were  born,  were  growing  up 
and  already  served  for  the  hundred  purposes  to  which 
children  can  put  trees.  But  the  ones  most  generous  in 
their  growth  and  kindest  in  their  service  to  us  we  regarded 
with  ungrateful  contempt.  Who  had  ever  heard  of  a 
a  cotton- wood  in  a  book  ?  The  box-elder  was  distinctly 
unliterary.  The  fact  that  these  trees  had  been  quickest 
and  most  gracious  in  redeeming  new  homes  from  bareness 
was  nothing  to  us.  Even  the  maple  was  less  valuable  when 
we  learned  that  it  was  not  the  sugar-maple,  and  that  no 
matter  how  long  we  waited  we  could  never  have  a  sugar- 
ing-off.  The  trees  we  were  most  eager  for  came  on 
slowly.     It  seemed  as  if  the  oaks  would  never  have  acorns. 


406  MODERN  ESSAYS 

They  did  come  at  last,  and  we  were  able  to  satisfy  our- 
selves that  they  were  not  edible,  either  green  or  ripe, 
and  to  fit  our  pinky  fingers  into  the  velvety  little  thimbles 
of  them,  the  softest,  warmest  little  cups  in  the  world. 

Our  grove  was  an  experimental  one,  as  a  grove  in  a  new 
country  must  be,  and  held  all  sorts  of  things,  which  we 
made  our  own  one  by  one.  There  were  slender  white 
birches,  to  become  beautiful  trees  in  time,  from  which  we 
stripped  bits  of  young  bark.  It  was  quite  useless,  of 
course,  a  flimsy,  papery  stuff,  but  we  pretended  to  find 
use  for  it,  as  we  had  read  of  others  doing.  There  were 
handsome  young  chestnut  trees,  bravely  trying  to  adapt 
themselves  to  their  land  of  exile.  The  leaves  were  fine  for 
making  dresses  and  hats,  and  we  spent  long  July  afternoons 
bedizened  like  young  dryads.  There  were  so  many 
things  to  do  and  to  investigate  in  the  earlier  months  that 
it  was  midsummer  before  we  reached  this  amusement. 
But  we  watched  year  by  year  for  the  fruit  of  the  tree. 
And  at  last,  when  the  first  ones  came,  we  carried  them 
proudly  to  school  to  exhibit  them  for  the  wonderment  of 
the  other  pupils,  and  to  apply  them  surreptitiously  to 
the  natural  uses  of  a  chestnut  burr. 

One  spring  day,  in  the  dimmest  part  of  the  maple  grove, 
we  found  a  tiny  fern-head  coming  up  from  a  scanty  bed  of 
moss.  We  watched  it  for  days,  consulting  at  intervals 
the  pictures  of  ferns  in  the  encyclopedia,  and  at  last,  when 
hope  trembled  on  the  brink  of  certainty,  we  solemnly 
led  our  mother  out  to  identify  it.  Was  it  really  a  fern  or 
only  a  weed  that  looked  like  a  fern  ?  No  sacred  oak  was 
ever  approached  with  more  careful  reverence.  Our 
mother,  an  exile  from  her  own  forest  country,  talked  of 
bracken  shoulder-high  and  rich  moss  on  old  gray  stones 
or  broad  tree  stumps.     We  used  to  draw  in  our  breath  at 


A  STEPDAUGHTER  OF  THE  PRAIRIE        407 

the  wanton  riches  of  fallen  trees  and  stumps.  Big  trees, 
to  cut  down  !  We  viewed  our  mother  enviously.  But 
our  little  frond  was  something.  It  drew  as  great  ecstasy 
from  our  little  hearts  as  a  bracken-covered  hillside  has 
ever  done.  We  saw  the  bracken  in  epitome,  and  dreamed 
of  conventicles  and  royal  fugitives. 

How  I  hoarded  my  little  borrowings  from  the  actual 
to  enrich  the  ideal !  A  neighbor  had  a  stake-and-rider 
fence.  No  doubt  he  was  a  poor  footless  sort  of  farmer 
or  he  would  never,  in  that  country,  have  had  one  —  where 
all  good  farmers  had  barbed-wire,  or,  at  best,  rail  fences. 
My  father  had  some  hedges,  and  I  was  proud  of  them. 
They  were  not  hawthorn,  but  one  must  be  thankful  for 
what  gifts  fate  brings,  and  I  felt  some  distinction  in  their 
smooth,  genteel  lines.  But  that  Virginia  rail  fence  —  I 
coveted  its  irregular  convolutions  and  deep  angles,  where 
the  plough  never  went  and  where  almost  anything  might 
grow.  Whether  it  was  an  older  place  than  ours  or  a  worse- 
cared-for  one,  I  don't  know.  But,  if  the  cause  were  bad 
farming,  it  had  a  reward  out  of  proportion,  in  my  estima- 
tion ;  for  the  deep  fence  corners  held  a  tangle  wonderful 
to  investigate,  of  wild  grape  and  pokeberry  and  elderberry 
and  an  ivy  the  leaves  of  which  must  be  counted  to  see  if  it 
were  poison.  They  either  should  or  should  not  be  the 
same  as  the  number  of  my  fingers ;  but  I  never  could 
remember  which  it  was  and  had  to  leave  its  pink  tips  of 
tender  new  leaves  unplucked.  There  were  new  little 
maples  and  box-elders,  where  the  rails  had  stopped  the 
flight  of  the  winged  seeds  from  the  small  grove  about  the 
house.  There  were  tiny  elms  with  their  exquisite  little 
leaves.  No  beauty  of  form  I  have  ever  found  has  given 
me  more  complete  satisfaction  than  did  the  perfect  lines 
and  notches  of  those  baby  leaves.     There  were  other  plants 


408  MODERN  ESSAYS 

that  I  never  learned  to  know.  How  much  better  it 
would  have  been  had  all  fields  had  a  border  like  this, 
ornamental  and  satisfying,  instead  of  the  baldness  of  a 
wire  fence.  The  possession  of  it  gave  the  O'Brion  children 
an  eminence  that,  while  I  knew  it  was  factitious,  I  could 
not  help  recognizing. 

On  our  part  we  had  a  stream,  such  as  it  was.  The 
muddy  little  creek  —  we  called  it  crick  —  was  to  me  a 
brook,  secretly.  Poor  little  creek  !  It  did  to  wade  in  and 
to  get  muddy  in,  but  that  was  all.  It  had  no  trout,  no 
ripples  over  stones,  no  grassy  banks.  It  ran  through  a 
cornfield  and  a  bit  of  scanty  pasture  where  its  banks  were 
trodden  by  the  feet  of  cattle ;  and  it  did  not  babble  as  it 
flowed.  Try  as  I  might,  I  could  not  connect  it  with 
Tennyson  or  Jean  Ingelow.  But  I  could  at  least  call  it  a 
brook  to  myself.  I  had  other  names  of  secret  applica- 
tion. In  the  spring  the  dull  little  stream  used  to  overflow 
its  banks.  Then  the  word  brought  to  the  house  by  one 
of  the  men  would  be,  "The  crick's  out."  But  to  myself  I 
said  freshet,  and  I  suppose  I  was  the  only  one  in  the  whole 
section  to  use  the  old  word. 

There  was  an  odd  little  hollow  on  the  hillside  above  the 
brook.  It  was  an  unromantic  spot  enough,  treeless,  dis- 
tinguished only  by  its  dimple-like  contour.  But  I  called 
it  a  dell,  or  in  intenser  moments  a  dingle  or,  when  I  was 
thinking  largely,  a  glen,  and  used  to  make  a  point  to  cross 
it.  This  was  partly  l)ecause  I  sometimes  found  bits  of 
pebbles  in  the  cup  of  the  hollow,  and  any  stone  indigenous 
to  the  country  was  a  treasure  trove.  I  called  the  little 
level  place  below  the  hollow  a  glade,  and  the  hillside  a 
brae,  and  the  open  hill-top  a  moor  or  heath.  Had  I  used 
the  dictionary  more  freely  I  might  have  applied  more 
terms,  but  I  did  not  know  what  a  wold  or  a  tarn  or  a  down 


A  STEPDAUGHTER  OF  THE  PRAIRIE        409 

was,  and,  lazily,  kept  them  in  reserve,  fine  as  they  sounded. 
My  private  vocabulary,  as  can  be  seen,  was  largely  Tenny- 
sonian,  and  I  loved  an  archaism,  as  something  remote 
from  the  practical.  Whatever  excursions  I  made  into 
other  poets,  Tennyson  was,  first  and  last,  my  dear  delight. 
My  feet  were  turned  over  and  oft,  by  the  guardians  of 
my  reading,  into  the  easy  paths  of  American  poetry.  I 
found  due  pleasure  in  them,  but  it  was  always  tempered 
by  a  sort  of  resentment  that,  though  American,  their 
country  was  not  my  country.  For  New  England  was 
farther  away  than  Old  England,  and  I  always  went  back 
to  Tennyson.  I  used  to  sit  in  the  dingle  in  bald  sunlight 
and  listen  to  such  unpretentious  noise  as  the  creek  made, 
and  chant  to  myself,  "How  sweet  it  were,  hearing  the 
downward  stream  !" 

The  beauty  of  the  prairie  is  not  of  the  sort  that  a  child 
perceives.  The  bigness  of  it,  for  instance,  I  had  been  used 
to  all  my  life,  and  I  can't  remember  that  in  those  earlier 
days  it  conveyed  any  sense  of  expansiveness  to  me.  In 
our  long  drives  over  it  —  interminably  long  they  seemed 
once !  —  my  chief  recollection  is  of  greenness  and  tired- 
ness, a  long  succession  of  rolling  hills  and  hollows,  and  a 
little  girl  so  weary  of  sitting  up  on  a  seat  and  watching  the 
horses  go  on  and  on.  I  thought  the  prairie  was  just  green 
grass  in  summer  and  dry  grass  in  winter.  Children  are 
not  usually  awake  to  shadings  and  modifications  of  color. 
The  coral  pink  at  the  roots  of  the  dried  prairie  grass,  the 
opal  tints  of  the  summer  mists  in  the  early  morning,  I  did 
not  discover  until  I  had  reached  a  stage  of  greater  alertness. 

And  the  prairie  was  not  suggestive  to  me  at  this  early 
time.  Looking  back  now,  I  guess  that  it  was  because  it 
did  not  hint  at  the  unknown.  It  should  have,  of  course, 
but  it  did  not.     It  did  not  carry  me  away  and  away  to 


410  MODERN  ESSAYS 

new  possibilities.  I  knew  that  beyond  these  grass-covered 
hills  there  lay  others  and  then  others  —  and  that  was  all 
there  was  to  it.  When  I  saw  it  face  to  face  I  seemed  to 
know  it  all  —  and  who  wants  to  know  all  about  anything  ? 
This  was  not  only  because  I  was  a  book-stuffed  little  prig, 
as  I  suppose  I  was.  I  had  imagination  of  a  sort,  as  it 
seems  to  me  now,  when  I  recall  my  pleasure  in  certain 
things :  in  the  dim,  hovering  suggestiveness  of  twilight 
and  the  unanalyzable  reverie  it  put  me  into ;  in  the  half- 
heard  sounds  of  mid-afternoon  in  the  orchard  ;  in  the  bend 
of  the  young  trees  in  a  storm  at  night,  when  I  slipped 
from  bed  to  watch  them  in  the  flashes  of  lightning.  There 
was  a  white  pine  near  my  window,  "an  exile  in  a  stoneless 
land,"  that  responded  to  the  rush  of  the  western  wind  with 
a  beautiful  bend  and  swing.  But  when  in  the  broad  day- 
light I  looked  out  on  the  green  hills  I,  in  those  earlier  days, 
saw  no  changing  colors,  none  of  the  exquisite  variety  of 
view  that  must  have  been  there.     I  saw  only  green  hills. 

But  had  the  prairie  had  a  literature  —  if  I  could  only 
have  been  sure  that  it  was  worthy  to  put  in  a  book  !  If 
Lowell  and  Whittier  and  Tennyson  —  most  of  all,  Tenny- 
son —  had  written  of  slough-grass  and  ground  squirrels 
and  barbed-wire  fences,  those  despised  elements  would 
have  taken  on  new  aspects.  I  was  a  wistful  peri  longing 
for  a  literary  paradise. 

But  the  Word  on  the  horizon  was  something.  It  was 
far  away,  but  it  was  real.  I  did  not  try  to  analyze  its 
promise,  but  it  was  there. 


YOSEMITE  1 

BY 

Arthur  Colton 

As  Miss  Lynn's  object  was  to  give  the  impression  of  the  prairie  on  the 
mind  of  a  child,  so  Mr.  Colton's  desire  is  to  interpret  the  effect  of  the 
Yosemite  upon  himself.  There  is  very  little  of  formal  description,  and 
none  of  the  guide-book  variety.  He  assumes  on  the  part  of  the  reader 
a  knowledge,  if  not  first-hand,  at  least  second-hand,  of  this  famous 
valley,  and  even  of  the  details.  He  feels  it  unnecessary  to  describe  or 
locate  the  "Bridal  Veil  Falls,"  the  "Half  Dome,"  or  "El  Capitan." 
There  is  no  attempt  to  send  the  reader  away  with  a  picture  of  the  Yosem- 
ite in  his  mind.  His  endeavor  is  to  interpret  the  effect  upon  himself 
so  that  the  reader  will  be  in  a  mood  analogous  to  that  which  he  would 
experience  were  he  in  the  Yosemite.  To  do  this,  Mr.  Colton  gives  us 
the  fanciful,  suggestive,  picturesque,  and  imaginative  reflections  that  the 
Valley  caused  in  him.  In  other  words,  to  interpret  the  Valley  to  another, 
he  records  the  ideas  that  flowed  through  his  mind  under  this  stimulus, 
exactly  as  a  musician,  to  interpret  a  symphony,  may  record  his  reactions 
under  that  stimulus.  Since  from  the  nature  of  the  case  there  can  be 
no  dominating  thought,  an  essay  of  this  type  is  good  in  proportion  as 
the  sensitive  mind  responds  to  the  appeal. 

The  traveler  into  Yosemite  still  goes  by  stage,  or  by  his 
own  conveyance  of  horse  or  foot.  He  is  expected,  pres- 
ently, to  enter  by  trolley  up  the  Merced  River,  and  this 
is  thought  by  many  to  be  a  lamentable  thing. 

But  Yosemite  is  already  shorn  of  freedom  and  solitude. 
Shops  and  cottages  are  there,  a  hotel,  permanent  camps, 
regulations,  and  even  the  parasite  called  "graft,"  that 

^  From  the  author's  manuscript,  by  permission. 
411 


412  MODERN  ESSAYS 

final  seal  of  a  fledged  society.  The  trolley  will  make  it  a 
convenient  outfitting  station  to  the  High  Sierras  and  their 
better  solitudes. 

A  didactic  poetess  once  wrote : 

"Laugh  and  the  world  laughs  with  you. 
Weep  and  you  weep  alone"; 

and  bestowed  a  familiar  quotation  on  many  who  have  per- 
haps no  further  acquaintance  with  the  didactic  poetess. 
She  appeared  to  intend  not  only  the  statement  of  two 
facts  in  nature,  but  also  to  advise  that  you  avoid  sorrow  be- 
cause it  is  lonely,  and  cultivate  cheerfulness  because  it 
attracts  company.  The  two  facts  seem  to  be,  in  tendency, 
as  stated,  but  the  advice  is  open  to  qualification ;  first,  be- 
cause sorrow  has  some  other  results  than  solitude,  and  laugh- 
ter than  companionship  ;  second,  because  solitude  has  its 
own  values,  and  company  its  own  drawbacks.  Why 
should  company,  if  gathered  by  your  cheerfulness,  be 
advisable,  and  company,  if  gathered  by  your  trolley  car, 
be  lamentable  ? 

But  the  knowledge  of  the  survival  of  the  fittest  as  a 
working  law,  makes  for  that  calming  philosophy  which 
leans  to  a  faith  in  the  rightness  of  things  that  survive, 
and  the  power  of  time  to  prove  it.  Certain  it  is  that  no 
one  but  time  can  prove  it ;  no  one  else  has  a  rhetoric  that 
applies  to  the  case ;  no  one  else  can  so  cause  the  works  of 
man  and  nature  to  lie  down  together  like  a  lion  and  a 
lamb  at  the  millennium,  and  reconcile  them  as  English 
villages  and  the  hill  towns  of  Tuscany  are  reconciled  to 
their  places.  One  foresees  a  generation  to  which  the 
hotel  shall  seem  at  rest  in  Yosemite,  the  trolley  car  and 
the  Merced  River  harmonious  in  their  commotions ;  when 
the  tourist  shall  quote  poetry  at  Half  Dome,  Half  Dome 


YOSEMITE  413 

urbanely  criticize  the  quotation,  and  shops  and  cottages  be 
on  easy  terms  with  the  dignitaries  of  the  Sierran  hierarchy. 
Nature,  brought  into  Hterature,  was  once  hailed  as  the 
bringing  in  of  a  new  sincerity.  We  have  heard  it  ring 
false  enough.  Literature  has  been  introduced  to  nature 
still  oftener  insincerely.  Yet,  if  one  honestly  sets  the 
poets  and  the  plunging  waters  of  Yosemite  face  to  face, 
there  is  candor  between  them.  Cataracts  are  no  bad 
critics.     They  have  their  opinion  of  Coleridge's 

"Your  strength,  your  speed,  your  fury  and  your  joy. 
Unceasing  thunder  and  eternal  foam"; 

of  Wordsworth's 

"Stationary  blasts  of  waterfalls," 

and  his 

"The  cataracts  blow  their  trumpets  from  the  steep"; 

of  Longfellow's 

"Rivulets  rejoicing  run  and  leap 
And  wave  their  fluttering  signals  from  the  steep " ; 

of  Tennyson's 

"Pause  and  fall,  and  pause  and  fall," 

his 

"Thousand  streams  of  dangling  water  smoke 
That  like  a  broken  purpose  waste  in  air," 

and  his 

"Some  like  a  downward  smoke. 

Slow  dropping  veils  of  thinnest  lawns,  did  go 
And  some  through  wavering  lights  and  shadows  broke. 
Rolling  a  slumbrous  sheet  of  foam  below." 

In  the   "Valley"   it  is  noticeable  that  Yosemite  Falls 
prefers  the  Coleridge  passage,  that  the  Bridal  Veil  and 


414  MODERN  ESSAYS 

Vernal  Falls  approve  of  the  third  Tennyson,  and  several 
high  wind-blown  streams  of  the  second  Tennyson.  Tenny- 
son they  all  commend  as  the  most  observant  and  accurate, 
though  lacking  Coleridge's  enthusiasm  and  Wordsworth's 
imaginative  leaps  and  metaphors  that  go  up  with  a  rush. 
"Your  Longfellow,"  they  say,  "can  hardly  be  a  Sierran 
poet ;  rather,  on  the  whole,  of  some  country  where  nature 
does  not  perform  on  a  large  scale,  but  closer  to  human 
proportions,  a  land  where  you  Lilliputians  can  feel  at 
home  without  over-expanding  your  minds.  His  'flutter- 
ing signal '  is  a  diminutive.  Now,  your  Tennyson  belongs, 
does  he  not,  to  a  fixed  society,  somewhat  heavy  with 
customs,  refinements,  luxuries,  morals  and  leisures.'*" 
"Dangling  water  smoke,"  wasted  like  "a  broken  purpose," 
Yosemite  Falls  once  remarked  in  my  hearing,  "is  more 
accurate  than  imaginative,  and  more  promptly  moralized 
than  I  care  for."  And  it  added,  "Have  any  of  your  poets 
noticed  my  white  rockets?" 

I  think  not.  Yet  every  long  tumultuous  waterfall 
shoots  downward  through  its  mists  those  round-headed 
missiles,  half  water  and  half  foam,  ghostly  comets  with  a 
trailing  splurge.  Or  noticed  either,  for  that  matter,  the 
metallic  clang  of  waterfalls  if  heard  at  some  distance,  the 
crash  like  the  first  attack  of  thunder  shorn  of  its  following 
roll ;  or  noticed  either,  at  the  base  of  a  waterfall,  the 
heavy  monotony  of  its  voice,  not  a  sound  of  "fury"  or  of 
"joy,"  but  of  fatality  and  despair;  or  taken  to  heart  the 
gray  breath  of  waterfalls,  the  pallor  and  chill  of  the  blown 
spray,  where  it  is  ill  for  humanity  to  linger  long  in  the  sense 
of  cold  encircling  mystery  and  its  own  delusion,  of  driving 
power  and  its  own  helplessness. 

It  is  better  to  go  down  to  the  green  Merced  River  and  the 
meadows.     The  god  of  things  as  they  should  be  meant 


YOSEMITE  415 

that  his  worshippers  —  whose  lives  are  spent  in  the  pur- 
suit of  a  lost  chord,  a  missing  harmony  between  ourselves 
and  things  not  themselves  —  should  contemplate  Yosemite 
from  the  standpoint  of  its  meadows.  The  spirit  of  Yosem- 
ite is  defined,  human,  sufficient,  sheltered  from  high, 
desolate  and  Sierran  ambitions.  The  spirit  of  the  Canon 
of  the  Colorado  is  compact  of  color  and  immensity ;  the 
essence  of  Yosemite  is  not  immensity  but  proportion  and 
charm  —  white  water  falling  in  the  distance,  green  water 
gliding  in  the  shadow,  still  water  reflecting  blue  groves 
and  many  colored  flowers  in  level  fields,  and  the  right 
relation  of  all  these  to  the  smooth  gray  domes  and  those 
framing  walls,  whose  height  is  not  for  terror  but  to  make 
the  pines  that  feather  their  keen  edges  look  delicate  as 
ferns. 

Admitting  that  there  is  an  element  of  freakishness 
about  Yosemite,  yet  the  sense  of  it  soon  dies  away  and 
leaves  the  charm.  The  cliffs  shoot  up  from  a  fiat  valley, 
through  whose  green  fields  and  woods  goes  a  swift  green 
river.  The  contrast  is  startling,  and  so  far  merely  sensa- 
tional, but  time  brings  out  their  rightness  in  relation. 
The  climbers  to  the  hanging  rock  and  sheer  abyss  of 
Glacier  Point  are  seekers  after  sensation  rather  than  beauty. 
The  sensationalist  is  the  same  in  the  wilderness  as  in 
literature  and  at  the  theater.  He  feels  no  values  but 
emphasis.  Grass  and  sliding  water  are  not  emphatic. 
Grass  is  the  standing  example  of  things  gracious  by  their 
indistinction,  by  their  numbers  and  community,  the 
swarming  proletariat  of  the  meadows.  The  orders  and 
ranks  of  flowery  aristocracy  over  it,  gold,  blue,  red 
and  white,  are  ornate  persons  given  over  to  pomp  and 
heraldry. 

Some  one  has  remarked  on  the  prevalence  of  blue  flowers 


416  MODERN  ESSAYS 

over  red,  and  set  it  down  to  the  facts  that  flowers  are 
propagated  through  the  agency  of  their  banqueting 
visitors  :  that  bees  are  more  attracted  by  blue,  and  hum- 
ming-birds by  red ;  and  that  bees  are  many,  while  hum- 
ming-birds are  few. 

Are  flowers  more  frequently  blue  than  red  ?  Do  bees 
prefer  the  blue,  and  if  so,  how  did  they  come  by  the  pref- 
erence ?  The  matter  seems  disputable  throughout.  The 
colors  of  flowers  are  doubtless  derivative.  They  represent 
solutions  of  the  advertising  problem.  The  bill-board  that 
disfigures  the  countryside  and  the  flower  that  decorates  it 
owe  their  characteristics  to  the  same  law  and  condition  — 
the  condition  that  in  order  to  live  they  must  be  noticed. 
They  are  competitors  for  business,  and  every  flower  color 
represents  success.  It  has  some  established  relation  to 
the  taste  of  some  visiting  insect.  But  what  the  first  ele- 
ments of  this  taste  may  be  is  probably  an  unanswerable 
question. 

Putting  aside  the  composition  and  physics  of  color,  if 
one  looks  about  for  the  large  insistent  aspects  of  the  world 
—  those  phenomena  in  respect  to  color  whose  constant 
presence  to  generations  innumerable  and  forgotten  has 
made  us  what  we  are,  to  see  and  feel  as  we  do  about  color  — 
the  following  seem  to  be  the  principal  phenomena  —  so  all 
generations  have  looked  about  them,  and  this  is  what  they 
have  seen. 

The  great  blue  was  the  sky,  and  its  darkened  reflection 
in  water.  Green  appeared  as  the  chief  color  of  living 
growth,  for,  as  a  rule,  whatever  the  earth  brought  forth 
in  the  vegetable  kingdom,  in  field  or  forest  or  sea,  was 
mainly  green.  Yellow  was  the  color  of  the  sand  of  shore 
and  desert,  and  of  most  of  those. forms  which,  after  a 
green  life,  had  perished  by  drouth  or  cold ;   so  it  might 


YOSEMITE  417 

have  seemed  the  color  of  death  and  barrenness,  but  it  was 
also  the  sun's  color  —  an  eminent  contradiction  —  as  well 
as  that  of  the  moon  and  stars.  Brown  was  the  color  of 
the  soil.  White  appeared  mainly  in  water  out  of  its 
normal  condition,  as  in  cloud,  snow  and  foam.  Black, 
they  probably  connected  with  night,  or  the  closing  of  the 
eyes.  Gray  was  the  commonest  rock  color  and  tree-trunk 
color,  but  a  larger  fact  than  those  was  the  gray  of  the 
shadowed  cloud,  and  of  the  rain  and  mist.  Red  was  not 
seen  in  the  same  masses  and  proportions  as  the  others ; 
no  single  immense  aspect  of  nature  was  red ;  it  was  the 
color  of  blood  from  a  wound,  of  the  weather-beaten  or 
flushed  face;  it  was  momentary  in  sunrises  and  sunsets, 
subsidiary  in  dead  forest  leaves ;  in  part  it  was  the  color 
of  fire,  that  mystery,  which,  leaping  out  of  wood  and 
stubble,  destroyed  them  and  vanished,  leaving  a  red 
ember. 

The  preferences,  if  any,  of  bees  and  humming-birds  and 
the  tangled  web  of  feeling,  by  which  and  to  which  the 
painter  makes  his  human  appeal,  must  somehow  in  the 
main  hark  back  to  these,  the  largest,  oldest  and  most 
constant  phenomena  of  color.  One  cannot  see  all  the 
connections,  but  it  is  a  pretty  speculation  in  Yosemite, 
a  useful  speculation ;  lest  we  forget  that  out  of  wild  nature 
we  are  come,  that  our  instincts  are  great  and  our  wisdoms 
little,  that  the  main  current  of  the  will  runs  deep  like  the 
green  Merced  River  and  our  reasoned  choices  are  like  the 
flutter  of  foam  on  its  surface,  that  we  became  citizens  but 
yesterday  and  were  bred  in  the  wilderness. 

There  have  been  four  significant  books  put  out  within 

the  last  generation  on  the  subject  of  the  desert ;  of  which 

Mr.  Van  Dyke's  "Desert"  is  the  Salton  Basin  in  Southern 

California,  Mrs.  Austen's  "Land  of  Little  Rain"  is  the 

2b 


418  MODERN  ESSAYS 

Mojave,  Mr.  Hudson's  "Idle  Days  in  Patagonia"  has 
the  desert  not  so  much  for  its  subject  as  for  its  principal 
interest,  and  Mr.  Hichens'  "Garden  of  Allah"  is  a  novel 
in  which  the  Sahara  is  more  vivid  than  the  plot.  They  are 
significant  for  this  reason  : 

The  desert  was  a  more  dominant  aspect  of  nature  to  the 
earlier  than  to  the  later  civilization  from  which  we  derive, 
because  of  the  place  where  the  earlier  happened  to  occur, 
southwestern  Asia  and  northwestern  Africa.  It  was  an 
aspect  almost  wholly  hostile.  The  center  of  events  moving 
away  into  rainier  Europe,  the  desert  dropped  out  of  prom- 
inence in  recording  literatures.  But  the  new  and  for- 
ested wilderness  was  also  a  foe,  the  mountain  a  difficulty, 
the  desert  half  forgotten  or  bitterly  remembered.  Our 
histories  of  culture  have  pointed  out,  with  some  exceptions 
and  qualifications,  that  the  great  movement  toward  a 
conscious  friendship  and  intimate  communication  with 
nature,  as  far  as  the  possibility  of  a  Wordsworth,  is  only 
some  four  or  five  generations  old. 

None  of  the  four  books  above  mentioned  is  simple 
description  of  the  desert.  Like  Wordsworth's  mountains 
and  Thoreau's  woods,  something  passed  from  the  desert 
into  the  spirit  of  each  writer  and  became  expressive  there. 
They  are  significant,  because  they  announce  that  the  desert 
too  has  been  assimilated,  brought  within  the  sweep  of 
the  movement  and  put  on  confidential  terms  with  hu- 
manity. After  long  absence  it  has  returned  to  recognition 
and  record.  We  have  taken  one  more  step  in  an  acquaint- 
ance with  the  earth,  toward  making  ourselves  at  home  in 
our  domicile,  toward  the  exi)loration  of  its  attics  and 
cellars.  Once  we  lived  mainly  in  the  kitchen.  After 
all,  the  earth  is  a  palatial  dwelling,  with  art  galleries,  music 
rooms  and  interesting  rat  holes. 


YOSEMITE  419 

"I'm  but  a  stranger  here. 
Heaven  is  my  home,"  — 

is  the  astonishing  statement  we  sometimes  sing  to  a  tune 
none  too  thrilling,  but  we  know  better.  Even  in  a  heaven 
of  our  own  ideals  we  would  be  but  embarrassed  aliens. 
It  were  odd  to  have  so  long  occupied  the  earth,  and  be 
strangers  there,  with  an  offish  and  distant  demeanor  to- 
ward most  of  the  household.  The  intimacy  with  nature 
attained  by  Mr.  Gilbert  Chesterton,  to  whom 

"The  million  forests  of  the  earth 
Come  trooping  in  to  tea, 
The  great  Niagara  waterfall 
Is  never  shy  with  me : 

"  I  am  the  tiger's  confidant 
And  never  mention  names, 
The  lion  drops  the  formal  'Sir' 
And  lets  me  call  him  'James,'" 

looks  like  an  intimacy  on  the  point  of  becoming  oppres- 
sive, and  yet  the  satirist  uses  for  the  purposes  of  satire  a 
manner  of  speech  much  the  same  as  Emerson  used  in  order 
to  present  the  profoundest  facts  that  he  knew  • 

"River  and  rose  and  crag  and  bird. 

Forest  and  sun  and  oldest  night, 
To  me  their  aid  preferred. 

To  me  their  comfort  plight. 
Courage !  We  are  thine  allies. 
And  with  this  hint  be  wise." 

The  thing  is  somehow  true  in  spite  of  the  satirist.  More 
and  more  in  these  latter  times  we  turn  to  the  wilderness  for 
consolation,  for  happiness.  Strangely  enough  we  find  it. 
It  appears  that  there  are  few  methods  of  pursuing  happi- 
ness so  successful.  The  moral  of  the  old  apologue  was 
that  happiness  was  not  to  be  found  by  pursuit  at  all,  and 


420  MODERN  ESSAYS 

of  most  methods  of  pursuit  it  seems  to  be  an  observable 
fact.  But  the  seekers  of  the  wilderness  have  come  upon 
certain  odd  habits  of  this  furtive  divinity,  this  happiness, 
whose  shy,  here-and-gone  ways  are  Hke  those  of  a  wilder- 
ness animal,  and  have  learned  among  her  whims  and 
usages  how  apt  she  is,  at  the  end  of  the  hard  day,  to  glide 
like  a  shadow  out  of  the  forest,  to  sit  silently  beside  the 
camp  fire ;  or  at  noon  on  the  mountain  top,  while  one 
fancies  he  has  no  company  but  solitude,  suddenly  there 
are  three  on  the  mountain  top,  a  weary  body,  a  wide  out- 
look and  a  world  well  reconciled. 

It  appears  then  that  the  solitude  of  the  wilderness 
somehow  makes  for  happiness,  that  happiness  gathers 
company,  whose  happiness  demands  a  trolley  line  into 
Yosemite  and  the  banishment  of  solitude  to  the  higher 
Sierras.  And  it  appears  that  the  god  of  things  as  they 
should  be  meant  Yosemite  to  uplift  the  many  rather  than 
to  transport  the  few,  to  popularize  beauty  rather  than  to 
discover  it.  For  as  regards  this  intimacy  and  mutual 
understanding  between  man  and  nature,  there  appear 
to  be  two  kinds ;  one  of  which  arises  when  their  labors 
stand  reconciled  by  time,  as  the  hill  towns  with  the  hills 
in  Tuscany,  and  this  relation  is  like  that  of  man  and  wife 
who  have  grown  by  long  communion  to  resemble  each 
other  in  spirit  and  even  in  feature ;  and  the  other  arises 
when  we  come,  weary  of  artifice,  into  the  wilderness,  and 
is  like  the  meeting  of  man  and  maid,  who  look  into  each 
other's  eyes  and  see  eternity.  And  if,  as  appears,  Yosem- 
ite is  destined  for  the  friendship  of  comforting  usage 
rather  than  of  superb  recognitions,  in  the  first  place  it  is 
always  well  to  be  reasonable  with  destiny,  and  in  the 
second,  one's  impression  is  that  destiny  had  this  idea  in 
mind  when  Yosemite  was  first   conceived  and  given  its 


YOSEMITE  421 

proportion  and  its  restful  charm.  If,  then,  destiny  comes 
in  a  trolley  car  to  take  possession,  it  is  likely  that  time  will 
follow  with  the  title  deeds,  that  the  flowers  will  not  be 
made  self-conscious  by  spectators,  and  that  Half  Dome  will 
attend  to  its  own  dignity. 


THE  BOWERY  AND  BOHEMIA  ^ 

BY 

H.    C.    BUNNER 

Clearly  with  this  type  of  essay,  without  the  unifying  presence  of  a 
dominating  thought,  there  is  a  tendency  to  disintegration.  Both  Miss 
Lynn  and  Mr.  Colton  held  the  essay  together  by  confining  the  impressions 
to  those  of  a  single  mind.  Their  work  is  subjective.  Bunner,  on  the 
contrary,  is  objective.  The  rambling  tour  of  lower  New  York,  called 
Bowery  and  Bohemia,  is  made  for  the  purpose  of  giving  different  vivid 
impressions.  The  essay  opens  with  an  anecdotal  account  of  the  old  Bo- 
hemian circle,  passes  to  a  discussion  of  Bohemianism  in  general,  and  by 
the  route  of  Mulberry  Bend  arrives  at  the  Bowery,  with  which,  from  all 
that  may  be  deduced  from  the  essay,  the  Bohemians  had  little  to  do. 
Nor  is  there  any  very  clear  connection  between  Fitz-James  O'Brien 
and  the  Polish  Jew  who  hides  chickens  in  his  back  yard.  Thus  the  very 
title.  Bowery  and  Bohemia,  suggests  a  peddler's  pack  in  which  there  is  a 
little  of  everything.  Theoretically  the  attempt  is  impossible ;  practi- 
cally the  essay  is  charming,  with  the  flavor  of  a  fine  personality,  in  full 
control  of  his  artistic  medium.  And  the  reader  lays  the  book  down  with 
the  feeling  that  New  York  is  greater  than  he  thought  and  with  the 
wish  to  study  it  more  deeply. 

One  day  a  good  many  years  ago  an  old  gentleman  from 
Rondout-on-the-Hudson  —  then  plain  Rondout  —  was 
walking  up  Broadway  seeing  the  sights.  He  had  not  been 
in  New  York  in  ten  or  twelve  years,  and  although  he  was 
an  old  gentleman  who  always  had  a  cask  of  good  ale  in 
his  cellar  in  the  winter-time,  yet  he  never  tasted  the 
strange  German  beverage  called  lager-beer,  which  he  had 

*  From  "  Jersey  Street  and  Jersey  Lane,"  by  permission  of  Charles 
Scribner's  Sons. 

422 


THE  BOWERY  AND  BOHEMIA  423 

heard  and  read  about.  So  when  he  saw  its  name  on  a 
sign  he  went  in  and  drank  a  mug,  sipping  it  slowly  and 
thoughtfully,  as  he  would  have  sipped  his  old  ale.  He 
found  it  refreshing  —  peculiar  —  and,  well,  on  the  whole, 
very  refreshing  indeed,  as  he  considerately  told  the  pro- 
prietor. 

But  what  interested  him  more  than  the  beer  was  the 
sight  of  a  group  of  young  men  seated  around  a  table 
drinking  beer,  reading  —  and  —  yes,  actually  writing 
verses,  and  bandying  very  lively  jests  among  themselves. 
The  old  gentleman  could  not  help  hearing  their  conversa- 
tion, and  when  he  went  out  into  the  street  he  shook  his 
head  thoughtfully. 

"I  wonder  what  my  father  would  have  said  to  that?" 
he  reflected.  "Young  gentlemen  sitting  in  a  pot-house  at 
high  noon  and  turning  verses  like  so  many  ballad-mongers  ! 
Well,  well,  well,  if  those  are  the  ways  of  lager-beer  drinkers, 
I'll  stick  to  my  good  old  ale  ! " 

And  greatly  surprised  would  that  honest  old  gentleman 
have  been  to  know  that  the  presence  of  that  little  group  of 
poets  and  humorists  attracted  as  much  custom  to  good 
Mr.  Pfafl's  beer-saloon  as  did  his  fresh,  cool  lager;  and 
that  young  men,  and,  for  the  matter  of  that,  men  not  so 
young,  stole  in  there  to  listen  to  their  contests  of  wit,  and 
to  wish  and  yearn  and  aspire  to  be  of  their  goodly  company. 
For  the  old  gentleman  little  dreamed,  as  he  went  on  his 
course  up  Broadway,  that  he  had  seen  the  first  Bohemians 
of  New  York,  and  that  these  young  men  would  be  written 
about  and  talked  about  and  versified  about  for  genera- 
tions to  come.  Unconscious  of  this  honor  he  went  on  to 
Fourteenth  Street  to  see  the  new  square  they  were  laying 
out  there. 

Perhaps   nothing   better   marks   the  place   where  the 


424  MODERN  ESSAYS 

city  of  New  York  got  clean  and  clear  out  of  provincial 
pettiness  into  metropolitan  tolerance  than  the  advent 
of  the  Bohemians.  Twenty-five  years  earlier  they  would 
have  been  a  scandal  and  a  reproach  to  the  town.  Not 
for  their  literature,  or  for  their  wit,  or  for  their  hard 
drinking,  or  even  for  their  poverty ;  but  for  their  brother- 
hood, and  for  their  calm  indifference  to  all  the  rest  of 
the  world  whom  they  did  not  care  to  receive  into  their 
kingdom  of  Bohemia.  There  is  human  nature  in  this; 
more  human  nature  than  there  is  in  most  provincialism. 
Take  a  community  of  one  hundred  people  and  let  any  ten 
of  its  members  join  themselves  together  and  dictate  the 
terms  on  which  an  eleventh  may  be  admitted  to  their  band. 
The  whole  remaining  eighty-nine  will  quarrel  for  the 
twelfth  place.  But  take  a  community  of  a  thousand,  and 
let  ten  such  internal  groups  be  formed,  and  every  group 
will  have  to  canvass  more  or  less  hard  to  increase  its  num- 
ber. For  the  other  nine  hundred  people,  being  able  to 
pick  and  choose,  are  likely  to  feel  a  deep  indifference  to 
the  question  of  joining  any  segregation  at  all.  If  group 
No.  2  says,  "Come  into  my  crowd,  I  understand  they 
don't  want  you  in  No.  1,"  the  individual  replies  :  "What 
the  deuce  do  I  care  about  No.  1  or  you  either.?  Here  are 
Nos.  4,  5,  6,  and  7  all  begging  for  me.  If  you  and  No.  1 
keep  on  in  your  conceit  you'll  find  yourselves  left  out  in 
the  cold." 

And  as  it  frequently  happens  to  turn  out  that  way,  the 
dweller  in  a  great  city  soon  learns,  in  the  first  place,  that 
he  is  less  important  than  he  thought  he  was ;  in  the  second 
place,  that  he  is  less  unimportant  than  some  people  would 
like  to  have  him  think  himself.  All  of  which  goes  to  show 
that  when  New  Yorkers  looked  with  easy  tolerance,  and 
some  of  them  with  open  admiration,  upon  the  Bohemians 


TPIE  BOWERY  AND  BOHEMIA  425 

at  Pfaff's  saloon,  they  had  come  to  be  citizens  of  no  mean 
city,  and  were  making  metropolitan  growth. 

A  Bohemian  may  be  defined  as  the  only  kind  of  gentle- 
man permanently  in  temporary  difficulties  who  is  neither  a 
sponge  nor  a  cheat.  He  is  a  type  that  has  existed  in  all 
ages  and  always  will  exist.  He  is  a  man  who  lacks  certain 
elements  necessary  to  success  in  this  world,  and  who 
manages  to  keep  fairly  even  with  the  world,  by  dint  of 
ingenious  shift  and  expedient ;  never  fully  succeeding, 
never  wholly  failing.  He  is  a  man,  in  fact,  who  can't 
swim,  but  can  tread  water.  But  he  never,  never,  never 
calls  himself  a  Bohemian  —  at  least,  in  a  somewhat  wide 
experience,  I  have  known  only  two  that  ever  did,  and  one 
of  these  was  a  baronet.  As  a  rule,  if  you  overhear  a 
man  approach  his  acquaintance  with  the  formula,  "As  one 
Bohemian  to  another,"  you  may  make  up  your  mind  that 
that  man  means  an  assault  upon  the  other  man's  pocket- 
book,  and  that  if  the  assault  is  successful  the  damages  will 
never  be  repaired.  That  man  is  not  a  Bohemian ;  he 
is  a  beat.  Your  true  Bohemian  always  calls  himself  by 
some  euphemistic  name.  He  is  always  a  gentleman  at  odds 
with  fortune,  who  rolled  in  wealth  yesterday  and  will 
to-morrow,  but  who  at  present  is  willing  to  do  any  work 
that  he  is  sure  will  make  him  immortal,  and  that  he  thinks 
may  get  him  the  price  of  a  supper.  And  very  often  he 
lends  more  largely  than  he  borrows. 

Now  the  crowd  which  the  old  gentleman  saw  in  the 
saloon  —  and  he  saw  George  Arnold,  Fitz-James  O'Brien, 
and  perhaps  N.  P.  Shepard  —  was  a  crowd  of  Bohemians 
rather  by  its  own  christening  than  by  any  ordinary  appli- 
cation of  the  word.  They  were  all  young  men  of  ability, 
recognized  in  their  profession.  Of  those  who  have  died, 
two  at  least  have  honor  and  literary  consideration  to-day ; 


426  MODERN  ESSAYS 

of  those  who  lived,  some  have  obtained  celebrity,  and  all 
a  reasonable  measure  of  success.  Miirger's  Bohemians 
would  have  called  them  Philistines.  But  they  have 
started  a  tradition  that  will  survive  from  generation  unto 
generation ;  a  tradition  of  delusion  so  long  as  the  glamour 
of  poetry,  romance,  and  adventure  hang  around  the  mys- 
teriously attractive  personality  of  a  Bohemian.  Ever 
since  then  New  York  has  had,  and  always  will  have,  the 
posing  Bohemian  and  his  worshippers. 

Ten  or  fifteen  years  ago  the  "French  Quarter"  got  its 
literary  introduction  to  New  York,  and  the  fact  was  re- 
vealed that  it  was  the  resort  of  real  Bohemians  —  young 
men  who  actually  lived  by  their  wit  and  their  wits,  and  who 
talked  brilliantly  over  fifty-cent  table-d'h6te  dinners. 
This  was  the  signal  for  the  would-be  Bohemian  to  emerge 
from  his  dainty  flat  or  his  oak-panelled  studio  in  Washing- 
ton Square,  hasten  down  to  Bleecker  or  Houston  Street, 
there  to  eat  chicken  badly  braise,  fried  chuck-steak,  and 
soggy  spaghetti,  and  to  drink  thin  blue  wine  and  chicory- 
coffee  that  he  might  listen  to  the  feast  of  witticism  and 
flow  of  soul  that  he  expected  to  find  at  the  next  table.  If 
he  found  it  at  all,  he  lost  it  at  once.  If  he  made  the  ac- 
quaintance of  the  young  men  at  the  next  table,  he  found 
them  to  be  young  men  of  his  own  sort  —  agreeable  young 
boys  just  from  Columbia  and  Harvard,  who  were  painting 
impressionless  pictures  for  the  love  of  Art  for  Art's  sake, 
and  living  very  comfortably  on  their  paternal  allowances. 
Any  one  of  the  crowd  would  think  the  world  was  coming 
to  pieces  if  he  woke  up  in  the  morning  to  wonder  where  he 
could  get  his  breakfast  on  credit,  and  wonder  where  he 
could  earn  enough  money  to  buy  his  dinner.  Yet  these 
innocent  youngsters  continue  to  pervade  "The  Quarter," 
as  they  call  it ;   and  as  time  goes  on,  by  much  drinking  of 


THE  BOWERY  AND  BOHEMIA  427 

ponies  of  brandy  and  smoking  of  cigarettes,  they  get  to 
fancy  that  they  themselves  are  Bohemians.  And  when 
they  get  tired  of  it  all  and  want  something  good  to  eat, 
they  go  up  to  Delmonico's  and  get  it. 

And  their  Bohemian  predecessors,  who  sought  the 
French  fifty-cent  restaurants  as  their  highest  attainable 
luxury  —  what  has  become  of  them  ?  They  have  fled  be- 
fore that  incursion  as  a  flock  of  birds  before  a  whirlwind. 
They  leave  behind  them,  perhaps,  a  few  of  the  more  mean- 
spirited  among  them,  who  are  willing  to  degenerate  into 
fawners  on  the  rich,  and  habitual  borrowers  of  trifling 
sums.  But  the  true  Bohemians,  the  men  who  have  the 
real  blood  in  their  veins,  they  must  seek  some  other  meet- 
ing-place where  they  can  pitch  their  never-abiding  tents, 
and  sit  at  their  humble  feasts  to  recount  to  each  other, 
amid  appreciative  laughter,  the  tricks  and  devices  and 
pitiful  petty  schemes  for  the  gaining  of  daily  bread  that 
make  up  for  them  the  game  and  comedy  of  life.  Tell  me 
not  that  Ishmael  does  not  enjoy  the  wilderness.  The 
Lord  made  him  for  it,  and  he  would  not  be  happy  anywhere 
else. 

There  was  one  such  child  of  fortune  once,  who  brought 
his  blue  eyes  over  from  Ireland.  His  harmless  and  gentle 
life  closed  after  too  many  years  in  direst  misfortune. 
But  as  long  as  he  wandered  in  the  depths  of  poverty 
there  was  one  strange  and  mysterious  thing  about  him. 
His  clothes,  always  well  brushed  and  well  carried  on  a  gal- 
lant form,  often  showed  cruel  signs  of  wear,  especially 
when  he  went  for  a  winter  without  an  overcoat.  But 
shabby  as  his  garments  might  grow,  empty  as  his  pockets 
might  be,  his  linen  was  always  spotless,  stiff,  and  fresh. 
Now  everybody  who  has  ever  had  occasion  to  consider 
the  matter  knows  that  by  the  aid  of  a  pair  of  scissors  the 


428  MODERN  ESSAYS 

life  of  a  collar  or  of  a  pair  of  cuffs  can  be  prolonged  almost 
indefinitely  —  apparent  miracles  had  been  performed  in 
this  way.  But  no  pair  of  scissors  will  pay  a  laundry  bill ; 
and  finally  a  committee  of  the  curious  waited  upon  this 
student  of  economics  and  asked  him  to  say  how  he  did  it. 
He  was  proud  and  delighted  to  tell  them. 

"I  —  I  —  I'll  tell  ye,  boys,"  he  said,  in  his  pleasant  Dub- 
lin brogue,  "  but  'twas  I  that  thought  it  out.  I  wash  them, 
of  course,  in  the  basin  —  that's  easy  enough  ;  but  you'd 
think  I'd  be  put  to  it  to  iron  them,  wouldn't  ye,  now? 
Well,  I've  invinted  a  substischoot  for  ironing  —  it's  me 
big  books.  Through  all  me  vicissichoods,  boys,  I  kept  me 
Bible  and  me  dictionary,  and  I  lay  the  collars  and  cuffs  in 
the  undher  one  and  get  the  leg  of  the  bureau  on  top  of 
them  both  —  and  you'd  be  surprised  at  the  artistic  effect." 

There  is  no  class  in  society  where  the  sponge,  the  toady, 
the  man  who  is  willing  to  receive  socially  without  giving 
in  return,  is  more  quickly  found  out  or  more  heartily  dis- 
owned than  among  the  genuine  Bohemians.  He  is  to 
them  a  traitor,  he  is  one  who  plays  the  game  unfairly, 
one  who  is  willing  to  fill  his  belly  by  means  to  which  they 
will  not  resort,  lax  and  fantastic  as  is  their  social  code. 
Do  you  know,  for  instance,  what  "Jackaling"  is  in  New 
York.'^  A  Jackal  is  a  man  generally  of  good  address, 
and  capable  of  a  display  of  good  fellowship  combined 
with  much  knowledge  of  literature  and  art,  and  a  vast 
and  intimate  acquaintance  with  writers,  musicians,  and 
managers.  He  makes  it  his  business  to  haunt  hotels, 
theatrical  agencies,  and  managers'  offices,  and  to  know 
whenever,  in  his  language,  "a  new  jay  comes  to  town." 
The  jay  he  is  after  is  some  man  generally  from  the  smaller 
provincial  cities,  who  has  artistic  or  theatrical  aspirations 
and  a  pocketful  of  money.     It  is  the  Jackal's  mission  to 


THE  BOWERY  AND  BOHEMIA      429 

turn  this  jay  into  an  "angel."  Has  the  gentleman  from 
Lockport  come  with  the  score  of  a  comic  opera  under  his 
arm,  and  two  thousand  dollars  in  his  pocket  ?  Two 
thousand  dollars  will  not  go  far  toward  the  production  of  a 
comic  opera  in  these  days,  and  the  jay  finds  that  out  later ; 
but  not  until  after  the  Jackal  has  made  him  intimately 
acquainted  with  a  very  gentlemanly  and  experienced 
manager  who  thinks  that  it  can  be  done  for  that  price  with 
strict  economy.  Has  the  young  man  of  pronounced 
theatrical  talent  arrived  from  Keokuk  with  gold  and  a 
thirst  for  fame  ?  The  Jackal  knows  just  the  dramatist  who 
will  write  him  the  play  that  he  ought  to  star  in.  Does 
the  wealthy  and  important  person  from  Podunk  desire 
to  back  something  absolutely  safe  and  sure  in  the  line  of 
theatrical  speculation?  The  Jackal  has  the  very  thing 
for  which  he  is  looking.  And  in  all  these,  and  in  all  similar 
contingencies,  it  is  a  poor  Jackal  who  does  not  get  his 
commission  at  both  ends. 

The  Jackal  may  do  all  these  things,  but  he  may  not, 
if  he  is  treated,  fail  to  treat  in  return.  I  do  not  mean  to 
say  at  all  that  Jackaling  is  a  business  highly  esteemed, 
even  in  darkest  Bohemia,  but  it  is  considered  legitimate, 
and  I  hope  that  no  gentleman  doing  business  in  Wall 
Street,  or  on  the  Consolidated  Exchange,  will  feel  too 
deeply  grieved  when  he  learns  the  fact. 

But  where  have  the  real  Bohemians  fled  to  from  the 
presence  of  the  too-well-disposed  and  too-wealthy  children 
of  the  Benedick  and  the  Holbein?  Not  where  they  are 
likely  to  find  him,  you  may  be  sure.  The  true  Bohemian 
does  not  carry  his  true  address  on  his  card.  In  fact,  he  is 
delicate  to  the  point  of  sensitiveness  about  allowing  any 
publicity  to  attach  to  his  address.  He  communicates  it 
confidentially  to  those  with  whom  he  has  business  dealings, 


430  MODERN  ESSAYS 

but  he  carefully  conceals  it  from  the  prying  world.  As 
soon  as  the  world  knows  it  he  moves.  I  once  asked  a 
chief  of  the  Bohemian  tribe  whose  residence  was  the  world, 
but  whose  temporary  address  was  sometimes  Paris,  why  he 
had  moved  from  the  Quartier  Latin  to  a  place  in  Mont- 
martre. 

"Had  to,  my  dear  fellow,"  he  answered,  with  dignity; 
"why  if  you  live  over  on  that  side  of  the  river  they'll 
call  you  a  Bohemian!'' 

In  Paris  the  home  of  wit  in  poverty  has  been  moved 
across  the  Seine  to  the  south  side  of  the  hill  up  which 
people  climb  to  make  pilgrimages  to  the  Moulin  Rouge 
and  the  church  of  St.  Pierre  de  Montmartre.  In  New 
York  it  has  been  moved  not  only  across  that  river  of 
human  intercourse  that  we  call  Broadway  —  a  river  with 
a  tidal  ebb  and  flow  of  travel  and  traffic  —  but  across  a 
wilder,  stranger,  and  more  turbulent  flood  called  the 
Bowery,  to  a  region  of  which  the  well-fed  and  prosperous 
New  Yorker  knows  very,  very  little. 

As  more  foreigners  walk  on  the  Bowery  than  walk 
on  any  other  street  in  New  Y  ork ;  and  as  more  different 
nationalities  are  represented  there  than  are  represented  in 
any  other  street  in  New  York ;  and  as  the  foreigners  all 
say  that  the  Bowery  is  the  most  marvellous  thoroughfare 
in  the  world,  I  think  we  are  justified  in  assuming  that 
there  is  little  reason  to  doubt  that  the  foreigners  are 
entirely  right  in  the  matter,  especially  as  their  opinion 
coincides  with  that  of  every  American  who  has  ever  made 
even  a  casual  attempt  to  size  up  the  Bowery. 

No  one  man  can  thoroughly  know  a  great  city.  People 
say  that  Dickens  knew  London,  but  lam  sure  that  Dickens 
would  never  have  said  it.  He  knew  enough  of  London  to 
know  that  no  one  human  mind,  no  one  mortal  life  can  take 


THE  BOWERY  AND  BOHEMIA  431 

in  the  complex  intensity  of  a  metropolis.  Try  to  count  a 
million,  and  then  try  to  form  a  conception  of  the  im- 
possibility of  learning  all  the  ins  and  outs  of  the  domicile 
of  a  million  men,  women,  and  children.  I  have  met  men 
who  thought  they  knew  New  York,  but  I  have  never  met  a 
man  —  except  a  man  from  a  remote  rural  district  —  who 
thought  he  knew  the  Bowery.  There  are  agriculturists, 
however,  all  over  this  broad  land  who  have  entertained 
that  supposition  and  acted  on  it  —  but  never  twice. 
The  sense  of  humor  is  the  saving  grace  of  the  American 
people. 

I  first  made  acquaintance  with  the  Bowery  as  a  boy 
through  some  lithographic  prints.     I  was  interested    in 
them,  for  I  was  looking  forward  to  learning  to  shoot,  and 
my  father  had  told  me  that  there  used  to  be  pretty  good 
shooting  at  the  upper  end  of  the  Bowery,  though,  of  course, 
not  so  good  as  there  was  farther  up  near  the  Block  House, 
or  in  the  wood  beyond.     Besides,  the  pictures  showed  a 
very  pretty  country  road  with  big  trees  on  both  sides  of  it, 
and  comfortable  farmhouses,  and,  I  suppose,  an  inn  with 
a  swinging  sign.     I  was  disappointed  at  first,  when  I  heard 
it  had  been  all  built  up,  but  I  was  consoled  when  the  glories 
of  the  real  Bowery  were  unfolded  to  my  youthful  mind, 
and  I  heard  of  the  butcher-boy  and  his  red  sleigh  ;  of  the 
Bowery  Theatre  and  peanut  gallery,  and  the  gods,  and  Mr. 
Eddy,  and  the  war-cry  they  made  of  his  name  —  and  a 
glorious  old  war-cry  it  is,  better  than  any  college  cries  ever 
invented  :    "  Hi,    Eddy-eddy -eddy-eddy-eddy -eddy-eddy- 
eddy-eddy!"  of  Mose  and  his  silk  locks,  of  the  fire-en- 
gine fights,  and  Big  Six,  and  "  Wash-her-down ! "  of  the 
pump    at   Houston  Street ;    of  what    happened    to    Mr. 
Thackeray  when  he  talked  to  the  tough ;    of  many  other 
delightful  things   that  made  the  Bowery,   to   my  young 


432  MODERN  ESSAYS 

imagination,  one  long  avenue  of  romance,  mystery,  and 
thrilling  adventure.  And  the  first  time  I  went  in  the 
flesh  to  the  Bowery  was  to  go  with  an  elderly  lady  to  an 
optician's  shop. 

"And  is  this  —  Yarrow  ?  —  This  the  stream 
Of  which  my  fancy  cherished, 
So  faithfully,  a  waking  dream  ? 
An  image  that  hath  perished ! 
O  that  some  minstrel's  harp  were  near. 
To  utter  notes  of  gladness. 
And  chase  this  silence  from  the  air. 
That  fills  my  heart  with  sadness ! " 

But  the  study  of  the  Bowery  that  I  began  that  day  has 
gone  on  with  interruption  for  a  good  many  years,  and  I 
think  now  that  I  am  arriving  at  the  point  where  I  have 
some  faint  glimmerings  of  the  littleness  of  my  knowledge 
of  it  as  compared  with  what  there  is  to  be  known.  I  do 
not  mean  to  say  that  I  can  begin  to  size  the  disproportion 
up  with  any  accuracy,  but  I  think  I  have  accomplished  a 
good  deal  in  getting  as  far  as  I  have. 

The  Bowery  is  not  a  large  place,  for  I  think  that, 
properly  speaking,  it  is  a  place  rather  than  a  street  or 
avenue.  It  is  an  irregularly  shaped  ellipse,  of  notable 
width  in  its  widest  part.  It  begins  at  Chatham  Square, 
which  lies  on  the  parallel  of  the  sixth  Broadway  block 
above  City  Hall,  and  loses  its  identity  at  the  Cooper 
Union  where  Third  and  Fourth  Avenues  begin,  so  that  it 
is  a  scant  mile  in  all.  But  it  is  the  alivest  mile  on  the  face 
of  the  earth.  And  it  either  bounds  or  bisects  that  square 
mile  that  the  statisticians  say  is  the  most  densely  populated 
square  mile  on  the  face  of  the  globe.  This  is  the  heart  of  the 
New  York  tenement  district.  As  the  Bowery  is  the  Broad- 
way of  the  East  Side,  the  street  of  its  pleasures,  it  would 


THE  BOWERY  AND  BOHEMIA  433 

be  interesting  enough  if  it  opened  up  only  this  one  densely- 
populated  district.  But  there  is  much  more  to  contribute 
to  its  infinite  variety.  It  serves  the  same  purpose  for 
the  Chinese  colony  in  Mott,  Pell,  and  Doyers  Streets, 
and  for  the  Italian  swarms  in  Mulberry  Bend,  the  most 
picturesque  and  interesting  slum  I  have  ever  seen,  and  I 
am  an  ardent  collector  of  slums.  I  have  missed  art 
galleries  and  palaces  and  theatres  and  cathedrals  (cathe- 
drals particularly)  in  various  and  sundry  cities,  but  I 
don't  think  I  ever  missed  a  slum.  Mulberry  Bend  is 
a  narrow  bend  in  Mulberry  Street,  a  tortuous  ravine  of 
tall  tenement  houses,  and  it  is  so  full  of  people  that  the 
throngs  going  and  coming  spread  off  the  sidewalk  nearly 
to  the  middle  of  the  street.  There  they  leave  a  little 
lane  for  the  babies  to  play  in.  No,  they  never  get  run 
over.  There  is  a  perfect  understanding  between  the 
babies  and  the  peddlers  who  drive  their  wagons  in  Mul- 
berry Bend.  The  crowds  are  in  the  street  partly  because 
much  of  the  sidewalk  and  all  of  the  gutter  is  taken  up 
with  venders'  stands,  which  give  its  characteristic 
feature  to  Mulberry  Bend.  There  are  displayed  more 
and  stranger  wares  than  uptown  people  ever  heard  of. 
Probably  the  edibles  are  in  the  majority,  certainly  they 
are  the  queerest  part  of  the  show.  There  are  trays  and 
bins  there  in  the  Bend,  containing  dozens  and  dozens  of 
things  that  you  would  never  guess  were  meant  to  eat  if 
you  didn't  happen  to  see  a  ham  or  a  string  of  sausages  or 
some  other  familiar  object  among  them.  But  the  color 
of  the  Bend  —  and  its  color  is  its  strong  point  —  comes 
from  its  display  of  wearing  apparel  and  candy.  A  lady 
can  go  out  in  Mulberry  Bend  and  purchase  every  article 
of  apparel,   external  or  private  and  personal,   that  she 

ever  heard  of,  and  some  that  she  never  heard  of,  and  she 

2p 


434  MODERN  ESSAYS 

can  get  them  of  any  shade  or  hue.  If  she  likes  what 
they  call  "Liberty"  colors  —  soft,  neutral  tones  —  she 
can  get  them  from  the  second-hand  dealers  whose  goods 
have  all  the  softest  of  shades  that  age  and  exposure  can  give 
them.  But  if  she  likes,  as  I  do,  bright,  cheerful  colors, 
she  can  get  tints  in  Mulberry  Bend  that  you  could  warm 
your  hands  on.  Red,  greens,  and  yellows  preponderate, 
and  Nature  herself  would  own  that  the  Italians  could  give 
her  points  on  inventing  green  and  not  exert  themselves 
to  do  it.  The  pure  arsenical  tones  are  preferred  in  the 
Bend,  and,  by  the  bye,  anybody  who  remembers  the  days 
when  ladies  wore  magenta  and  solferino,  and  wants  to 
have  those  dear  old  colors  set  his  teeth  on  edge  again, 
can  go  to  the  Bend  and  find  them  there.  The  same  dye- 
stuffs  that  are  popular  in  the  dress-goods  are  equally 
popular  in  the  candy,  and  candy  is  a  chief  product  of 
Mulberry  Bend.  It  is  piled  up  in  reckless  profusion  on 
scores  of  stands,  here,  there,  and  everywhere,  and  to  call 
the  general  effect  festal,  would  be  to  speak  slightingly  of 
it.  The  stranger  who  enters  Mulberry  Bend  and  sees  the 
dress-goods  and  the  candies  is  sure  to  think  that  the  place 
has  been  decorated  to  receive  him.  No,  nobody  will 
hurt  you  if  you  go  down  there  and  are  polite,  and  mind 
your  own  business,  and  do  not  step  on  the  babies.  But 
if  you  stare  about  and  make  comments,  I  think  those 
people  will  be  justified  in  suspecting  that  the  people  up- 
town don't  always  know  how  to  behave  themselves  like 
ladies  and  gentlemen,  so  do  not  bring  disgrace  on  your 
neighborhood,  and  do  not  go  in  a  cab.  You  will  not 
bother  the  babies,  but  you  will  find  it  trying  to  your  own 
nerves. 

There  is  a  good  deal  of  money  in  Mulberry  Street,  and 
some  of  it  overflows  into  the  Bowery.     From  this  street 


THE  BOWERY  AND  BOHEMIA  435 

also  the  Baxter  Street  variety  of  Jews  find  their  way  into 
the  Bowery.  These  are  the  Jew  toughs,  and  there  is  no 
other  type  of  Jew  at  all  like  them  in  all  New  York's  assort- 
ment of  Hebrew  types,  which  cannot  be  called  meagre. 
Of  the  Jewish  types  New  York  has,  as  the  printers  say,  "  a 
full  case." 

But  it  is  on  the  other  side  of  the  Bowery  that  there  lies 
a  world  to  which  the  world  north  of  Fourteenth  Street  is  a 
select  family  party.     I  could  not  give  even  a  partial  list 
of  its  elements.     Here  dwell  the  Polish  Jews  with  their 
back-yards  full  of  chickens.     The  police  raid  those  back- 
yards with  ready  assiduity,   but   the  yards   are   always 
promptly  replenished.     It  is  the  police  against  a  religion, 
and  the  odds  are  against  the  police.     The  Jew  will  die 
for  it,  if  needs  be,  but  his  chickens  must  be  killed  kosher 
way  and  not  Christian  way,  but  that  is  only  the  way  of  the 
Jews :    the   Hungarians,   the   Bohemians,   the   Anarchist 
Russians,  the  Scandinavians  of  all  sorts  who  come  up 
from  the  wharfs,  the  Irish,  who  are  there,  as  everywhere, 
the  Portuguese  Jews,  and  all  the  rest  of  them  who  help  to 
form  that  city  within  a  city  —  have  they  not,  all  of  them, 
ways  of  their  own  "^     I  speak  of  this  Babylon  only  to  say 
that  here  and  there  on  its  borders,  and,  once  in  a  way,  in 
its  very  heart,  are  rows  or  blocks  of  plain  brick  houses, 
homely,  decent,  respectable  relics  of  the  days  when  the 
sturdy,  steady  tradesfolk  of  New  York  built  here  the  homes 
that  they  hoped  to  leave  to  their  children.     They    are 
boarding-  and  lodging-houses  now,  poor  enough,  but  proud 
in  their  respectability  of  the  past,  although  the  tide  of 
ignorance,  poverty,  vice,  filth,  and  misery  is  surging  to 
their  doors   and  their  back-yard   fences.     And  here,   in 
hall  bedrooms,  in  third-story  backs  and  fronts,   and  in 
half-story  attics,  live  the  Bohemians  of  to-day,  and  with 


436  MODERN  ESSAYS 

them  those  other  strugglers  of  poverty  who  are  destined 
to  become  "successful  men"  in  various  branches  of  art, 
hterature,  science,  trade,  or  finance.  Of  these  latter  our 
children  will  speak  with  hushed  respect,  as  men  who  rose 
from  small  beginnings ;  and  they  will  go  into  the  school- 
readers  of  our  grandchildren  along  with  Benjamin  Franklin 
and  that  contemptible  wretch  who  got  to  be  a  great 
banker  because  he  picked  up  a  pin,  as  examples  of  what 
perseverance  and  industry  can  accomplish.  From  what 
I  remember  I  foresee  that  those  children  will  hate  them. 

I  am  not  going  to  give  you  the  addresses  of  the  cheap 
restaurants  where  these  poor,  cheerful  children  of  adversity 
are  now  eating  goulasch  and  Kartoffelsalad  instead  of  the 
spaghetti  and  tripe  a  la  mode  de  Caen  of  their  old  haunts. 
I  do  not  know  them,  and  if  I  did,  I  should  not  hand  them 
over  to  the  mercies  of  the  intrusive  young  men  from  the 
studios  and  the  bachelors'  chambers.  I  wish  them  good 
digestion  of  their  goulasch  :  for  those  that  are  to  climb, 
I  wish  that  they  may  keep  the  generous  and  faithful 
spirit  of  friendly  poverty ;  for  those  that  are  to  go  on  to 
the  end  in  fruitless  struggle  and  in  futile  hope,  I  wish 
for  them  that  that  end  may  come  in  some  gentle  and 
happier  region  lying  to  the  westward  of  that  black  tide 
that  ebbs  and  flows  by  night  and  day  along  the  Bowery 
Way. 


EVOLUTION  1 

BY 

John  Galsworthy 

In  these  last  essays,  the  line  of  demarcation  between  exposition, 
description,  and  narration  has  become  very  thin  —  as  it  often  does 
outside  of  rhetorics.  Bunner's  essay  suggests  description,  and  suggests 
narrative.  It  is  a  story  without  a  plot.  As  the  characters  and  the 
scenes  are  there,  the  reader  at  any  moment  half  expects  it  to  blossom 
into  a  short  story.  Still  more  is  this  true  of  Mr.  Galsworthy's  Evolution. 
Is  it  a  story  or  is  it  an  essay  ?  For  the  first,  it  consists  of  a  single  dramatic 
episode  with  definite  characters.  For  the  second,  however,  the  pathos  of 
the  situation  is  not  individual  but  belongs  to  a  class.  (The  thought  is 
that  while  evolution  is  necessary  and  desirable  for  those  that  survive, 
the  struggle  is  hard  for  those  that  do  not  survived  This  might  be  illus- 
trated by  the  strikes  in  England  with  the  introduction  of  machinery 
into  the  cotton  mills,  when  thousands  were  thrown  out  of  employment. 
It  might  be  illustrated  by  the  Venetian  gondolier  who  finds  his  work 
taken  from  him  by  the  motor-boat.  Actually'the  particular  illustration 
chosen  is  that  of  a  cab-driver.  This  is  presented  with  consummate  art, 
detailed  and  definite.  And  the  essay  is  omitted.  But  it  is  implicit. 
The  tragedy  presented  is  not  that  of  an  individual,  but  that  of  a  class,  t 
And  in  this  way  Mr  Galsworthy  forces  the  reader  to  be  himself  the 
author.  This  type,  then,  represents  the  extreme  limit  of  the  expository 
form. 

Coming  out  of  the  theatre,  we  found  it  utterly  impossible 
to  get  a  taxicab ;  and,  though  it  was  raining  slightly, 
walked  through  Leicester  Square  in  the  hope  of  picking 
one  up  as  it  returned  down  Piccadilly.     Numbers  of  han- 

'  From  "The  Inn  of  Tranquillity."  Copyright,  1912,  by  Charles 
Scribner's  Sons.     By  permission  of  the  author  and  of  the  publishers. 

437 


438  MODERN  ESSAYS 

soms  and  four-wheelers  passed,  or  stood  by  the  curb,  haihng 
us  feebly,  or  not  even  attempting  to  attract  our  atten- 
tion, but  every  taxi  seemed  to  have  its  load.  At  Piccadilly 
Circus,  losing  patience,  we  beckoned  to  a  four-wheeler 
and  resigned  ourselves  to  a  long,  slow  journey.  A  sou'- 
westerly  air  blew  through  the  open  windows,  and  there  was 
in  it  the  scent  of  change,  that  wet  scent  which  visits  even 
the  hearts  of  towns  and  inspires  the  watcher  of  their  myriad 
activities  with  thought  of  the  restless  Force  that  forever 
cries:  "On,  on!"  But  gradually  the  steady  patter  of 
the  horse's  hoofs,  the  rattling  of  the  windows,  the  slow 
thudding  of  the  wheels,  pressed  on  us  so  drowsily  that 
when,  at  last,  we  reached  home  we  were  more  than  half 
asleep.  The  fare  was  two  shillings,  and,  standing  in  the 
lamplight  to  make  sure  the  coin  was  a  half-crown  before 
handing  it  to  the  driver,  we  happened  to  look  up.  This 
cabman  appeared  to  be  a  man  of  about  sixty,  with  a  long, 
thin  face,  whose  chin  and  drooping  grey  moustaches 
seemed  in  permanent  repose  on  the  up-turned  collar  of 
his  old  blue  overcoat.  But  the  remarkable  features  of 
his  face  were  the  two  furrows  down  his  cheeks,  so  deep  and 
hollow  that  it  seemed  as  though  that  face  were  a  collection 
of  bones  without  coherent  flesh,  among  which  the  eyes 
were  sunk  back  so  far  that  they  had  lost  their  lustre.  He 
sat  quite  motionless,  gazing  at  the  tail  of  his  horse.  And, 
almost  unconsciously,  one  added  the  rest  of  one's  silver  to 
that  half-crown.  He  took  the  coins  without  speaking; 
but,  as  we  were  turning  into  the  garden  gate,  we  heard 
him  say : 

"Thank  you  ;  you've  saved  my  life." 

Not  knowing,  either  of  us,  what  to  reply  to  such  a 
curious  speech,  we  closed  the  gate  again  and  came  back 
to  the  cab. 


EVOLUTION  439 

"Are  things  so  very  bad?" 

"They  are,"  replied  the  cabman.  "It's  done  with  —  is 
this  job.  We're  not  wanted  now."  And,  taking  up  his 
whip,  he  prepared  to  drive  away. 

"How  long  have  they  been  as  bad  as  this?" 

The  cabman  dropped  his  hand  again,  as  though  glad  to 
rest  it,  and  answered  incoherently : 

"Thirty -five  year  I've  been  drivin'  a  cab." 

And,  sunk  again  in  contemplation  of  his  horse's  tail,  he 
could  only  be  roused  by  many  questions  to  express  himself, 
having,  as  it  seemed,  no  knowledge  of  the  habit. 

"I  don't  blame  the  taxis,  I  don't  blame  nobody.  It's 
come  on  us,  that's  what  it  has.  I  left  the  wife  this  morning 
with  nothing  in  the  house.  She  was  saying  to  me  only 
yesterday :  '  What  have  you  brought  home  the  last  four 
months?'  'Put  it  at  six  shillings  a  week,'  I  said.  'No,' 
she  said,  'seven.'  Well,  that's  right  —  she  enters  it  all 
down  in  her  book." 

"  You  are  really  going  short  of  food  ?  " 

The  cabman  smiled ;  and  that  smile  between  those  two 
deep  hollows  was  surely  as  strange  as  ever  shone  on  a 
human  face. 

"You  may  say  that,"  he  said.  "Well,  what  does  it 
amount  to  ?  Before  I  picked  you  up,  I  had  one  eighteen- 
penny  fare  to-day ;  and  yesterday  I  took  five  shillings. 
And  I've  got  seven  bob  a  day  to  pay  for  the  cab,  and  that's 
low,  too.  There's  many  and  many  a  proprietor  that's 
broke  and  gone  —  every  bit  as  bad  as  us.  They  let  us 
down  as  easy  as  ever  they  can ;  you  can't  get  blood  from  a 
stone,  can  you?"  Once  again  he  smiled.  "I'm  sorry 
for  them,  too,  and  I'm  sorry  for  the  horses,  though  they 
come  out  best  of  the  three  of  us,  I  do  believe." 

One  of  us  muttered  something  about  the  Public. 


440  MODERN  ESSAYS 

The  cabman  turned  his  face  and  stared  down  through 
the  darkness. 

"The  PubHc?"  he  said,  and  his  voice  had  in  it  a  faint 
surprise.  "Well,  they  all  want  the  taxis.  It's  natural. 
They  get  about  faster  in  them,  and  time's  money.  I  was 
seven  hours  before  I  picked  you  up.  And  then  you  was 
lookin'  for  a  taxi.  Them  as  take  us  because  they  can't 
get  better,  they're  not  in  a  good  temper,  as  a  rule.  And 
there's  a  few  old  ladies  that's  frightened  of  the  motors,  but 
old  ladies  aren't  never  very  free  with  their  money  —  can't 
afford  to  be,  the  most  of  them,  I  expect." 

"Everybody's  sorry  for  you;  one  would  have  thought 
that  — " 

He  interrupted  quietly  :  "Sorrow  don't  buy  bread.  .  .  . 
I  never  had  nobody  ask  me  about  things  before."  And, 
slowly  moving  his  long  face  from  side  to  side,  he  added : 
"Besides,  what  could  people  do  ?  They  can't  be  expected 
to  support  you ;  and  if  they  started  askin'  you  questions 
they'd  feel  it  very  awkward.  They  know  that,  I  suspect. 
Of  course,  there's  such  a  lot  of  us  :  the  hansoms  are  pretty 
nigh  as  bad  off  as  we  are.  Well,  we're  gettin'  fewer 
every  day,  that's  one  thing." 

Not  knowing  whether  or  no  to  manifest  sympathy  with 
this  extinction,  we  approached  the  horse.  It  was  a  horse 
that  "stood  over"  a  good  deal  at  the  knee,  and  in  the 
darkness  seemed  to  have  innumerable  ribs.  And  suddenly 
one  of  us  said :  "  Many  people  want  to  see  nothing  but 
taxis  on  the  streets,  if  only  for  the  sake  of  the  horses." 

The  cabman  nodded. 

"This  old  fellow,"  he  said,  "never  carried  a  deal  of 
flesh.  His  grub  don't  put  spirit  into  him  nowadays ; 
it's  not  up  to  much  in  quality,  but  he  gets  enough  of  it." 

"And  you  don't.?" 


EVOLUTION  441 

The  cabman  again  took  up  his  whip. 

"I  don't  suppose,"  he  said  without  emotion,  "any  one 
could  ever  find  another  job  for  me  now.  I've  been  at 
this  too  long.  It'll  be  the  workhouse,  if  it's  not  the  other 
thing." 

And  hearing  us  mutter  that  it  seemed  cruel,  he  smiled 
for  the  third  time. 

"Yes,"  he  said  slowly,  "it's  a  bit  'ard  on  us,  because 
we've  done  nothing  to  deserve  it.  But  things  are  like  that, 
so  far  as  I  can  see.  One  thing  comes  pushin'  out  another, 
and  so  you  go  on.  I've  thought  about  it  —  you  get  to 
thinkin'  and  worryin'  about  the  rights  o'  things,  sittin'  up 
here  all  day.  No,  I  don't  see  anything  for  it.  It'll  soon 
be  the  end  of  us  now  —  can't  last  much  longer.  And  I 
don't  know  that  I'll  be  sorry  to  have  done  with  it.  It's 
pretty  well  broke  my  spirit." 

"There  was  a  fund  got  up." 

"Yes,  it  helped  a  few  of  us  to  learn  the  motor-drivin ' ; 
but  what's  the  good  of  that  to  me,  at  my  time  of  life? 
Sixty,  that's  my  age ;  I'm  not  the  only  one  —  there's 
hundreds  like  me.  We're  not  fit  for  it,  that's  the  fact ; 
we  haven't  got  the  nerve  now.  It'd  want  a  mint  of  money 
to  help  us.  And  what  you  say's  the  truth  —  people 
want  to  see  the  end  of  us.  They  want  the  taxis  —  our 
day's  over.  I'm  not  complaining ;  you  asked  me  about  it 
yourself." 

And  for  the  third  time  he  raised  his  whip. 

"Tell  me  what  you  would  have  done  if  you  had  been 
given  your  fare  and  just  sixpence  over.?" 

The  cabman  stared  downward,  as  though  puzzled  by 
that  question. 

"Done.'*     Why,  nothing.     What  could  I  have  done.?" 

"But  you  said  that  it  had  saved  your  life." 


442  MODERN  ESSAYS 

"Yes,  I  said  that,"  he  answered  slowly;  "I  was  feelin' 
a  bit  low.  You  can't  help  it  sometimes  ;  it's  the  thing 
comin'  on  you,  and  no  way  out  of  it  —  that's  what  gets 
over  you.     We  try  not  to  think  about  it,  as  a  rule." 

And  this  time,  with  a  "Thank  you,  kindly  !"  he  touched 
his  horse's  flank  with  the  whip.  Like  a  thing  aroused 
from  sleep  the  forgotten  creature  started  and  began  to 
draw  the  cabman  away  from  us.  Very  slowly  they 
travelled  down  the  road  among  the  shadows  of  the  trees 
broken  by  lamplight.  Above  us,  white  ships  of  cloud 
were  sailing  rapidly  across  the  dark  river  of  sky  on  the 
wind  which  smelled  of  change.  And,  after  the  cab  was 
lost  to  sight,  that  wind  still  brought  to  us  the  dying  sound 
of  the  slow  wheels. 


BIOGRAPHICAL  INDEX 

Abbott,  Wilbur  Cortez.  Born  1869,  Kokomo,  Ind.  B.  A.,  Wabash 
College,  1892;  B.  Litt.,  Oxford,  1897.  Formerly  instructor  in  history  in 
University  of  Michigan,  Dartmouth,  and  the  University  of  Kansas. 
Professor  of  History  in  the  Sheffield  Scientific  School  since  1908.  Con- 
tributor to  English  and  American  historical  reviews.  The  Nation,  Yale 
Review,  etc. 

Addams,  Jane.  Born  1860,  Cedarville,  111.  B.A.,  Rockford  College, 
1881.  Two  years  in  Europe.  LL.D.,  University  of  Wisconsin,  1904, 
Smith,  1910.  One  of  the  founders  of  Hull  House,  Chicago,  1889.  Head 
Resident,  Hull  House  since  founding.  Writer  and  lecturer  on  political 
and  social  reforms.  Author  of :  Democracy  and  Social  Ethics,  Newer 
Ideals  of  Peace,  The  Spirit  of  Youth  and  the  City  Streets,  Twenty 
Years  at  Hull  House,  A  New  Conscience  and  an  Ancient  Evil,  etc. 

AvEBURY,  John  Lubbock  (first  Baron).  Born  1834,  London.  Died 
1913.  Banker,  politician,  naturalist,  and  author.  Much  of  his  work 
was  popularizing  natural  history.  Author  of  :  The  Origin  and  Metamor- 
phoses of  Insects,  British  Wild  Flowers,  The  Pleasures  of  Life,  The 
Beauties  of  Nature,  The  Use  of  Life,  etc. 

Baldwin,    Charles   Sears.     Born    1867,    New   York   City.     B.A., 
Columbia,  1888,  Ph.  D.,  1894.     Formerly  Professor  of  English  at  Yale. 
Professor  of  Rhetoric  at  Columbia.     Author  of  books  on  compositioiX- 
and  English  literature ;  also  of  essays  and  reviews. 

Beers,  Henry  Augustine.  Born  1847,  Buffalo,  N.  Y.  B.A.,  Yale, 
1869,  M.A.,  1887.  Professor  of  English  in  Yale  College.  Author  of : 
The  Thankless  Muse,  A  Suburban  Pastoral,  The  Ways  of  Yale,  Points 
at  Issue,  A  History  of  English  Romanticism  (eighteenth  and  nineteenth 
centuries),  and  other  poems,  stories,  essays,  and  works  on  English  and 
American  Literature. 

Bennett,  Enoch  Arnold.  Born  1867,  North  Staffordshire,  England. 
Began  his  career  as  a  journalist.  Author  of  many  novels,  among  which 
are  The  Old  Wives'  Tale,  Anna  of  the  Five  Towns,  Clayhanger,  etc., 
and  plays,  such  as  What  the  Public  Wants,  Milestones  (with  Edward 
Knoblauch),  and  The  Great  Adventure. 

Birbell,'Augustine.     Born  1850,  near  Liverpool.     B.A.,  Cambridge, 

443 


444  MODERN  ESSAYS 

1872;  LL.D.,  St.  Andrews.  Lawyer  and  professor  of  law.  Author 
of  numerous  volumes  of  critical  and  general  essays,  among  them :  Obiter 
Dicta ;  Res  Judicatae ;  Men,  Women,  and  Books ;  In  the  Name  of  the 
Bodleian,  etc. 

Bryce,  James  (Viscount).  Born  1838,  Belfast.  B.A.,  Trinity 
College,  Oxford,  1862,  D.C.L.,  1870;  LL.D.  from  various  British  and 
American  universities.  Formerly  Regius  Professor  of  Civil  Law  at 
Oxford.  Active  in  English  politics ;  member  of  Parliament.  Am- 
bassador to  the  United  States,  1907-1912.  Fellow  of  the  Royal  Society. 
Author  of  historical  and  governmental  works,  among  them :  The  Holy 
Roman  Empire,  The  American  Commonwealth,  The  Hindrances  to  Good 
Citizenship,  University  and  Historical  Addresses,  etc. 

BuNNEB,  Henry  Cuylee.  Born  1855,  Oswego,  N.Y.  Died  1896. 
Journalist  and  editor.  Best  work  done  as  editor  of  Puck.  Author  of : 
Airs  from  Arcady,  and  other  volumes  of  poetry;  Short  Sixes,  Made  in 
France,  Jersey  Street  and  Jersey  Lane,  and  other  short  stories  and 
sketches. 

Burton,  Richard  Eugene.  Born  1859,  Hartford,  Conn.  B.A., 
Trinity,  1883;  Ph.D.,  Johns  Hopkins,  1888.  Literary  editor  of  the 
Hartford  Courant,  1890-1897.  Associate  editor  of  Warner's  Library  of 
the  World's  Best  Literature.  Now  head  of  the  English  Department  of 
the  University  of  Minnesota.  Author  of  :  Lyrics  of  Brotherhood,  Rahab, 
From  the  Book  of  Life,  Forces  in  Fiction,  Literary  Likings,  Little 
Essays  in  Literature  and  Life,  and  other  volumes  of  poetry,  essays, 
and  critical  works. 

Canby,  Henry  Seidel.  Born  1878,  Wilmington,  Del.  Ph. B., Yale, 
1899,  Ph.D.,  1905.  Assistant  Professor  of  English  in  the  Sheffield 
Scientific  School.  Assistant  editor  of  The  Yale  Review.  Author  of: 
The  Short  Story  in  English,  English  Composition  in  Theory  and 
Practice,  etc.     Contributor  of  short  stories  and  essays  to  the  magazines. 

Chesterton,  Gilbert  Keith.  Born  1874,  Campden  Hill,  Kensington, 
England.  Began  literary  work  by  reviewing  art  books  for  the  Bookman. 
Has  written  for  various  magazines  as  contributor  and  editor.  Author 
of  poems,  novels,  and  essays,  among  which  are  The  Man  WTio  Was 
Thursday,  The  Flying  Inn,  Heretics,  Orthodoxy,  etc. 

Colby,  Frank  Moore.  Born  1865,  Washington,  D.C.  B.A., 
Columbia,  1888,  M.A.,  1889.  Instructor  in  History  and  Economics 
at  Amherst,  Columbia,  and  New  York  University.  Author  of :  Outlines 
of  General  History,  Imaginary  Obligations,  Constrained  Attitudes,  and 
other  historical  works  and  general  essays. 


BIOGRAPHICAL  INDEX  445 

CoLTON,  Arthur  Willis.  Born  1868,  Washington,  Conn.  B.A., 
Yale,  1890,  Ph.D.,  1893.  Author  of:  The  Delectable  Mountains,  The 
Debatable  Land,  The  Cruise  of  the  Violetta,  Harps  Hung  Up  in  Babylon, 
and  other  novels  and  volumes  of  poetry ;  contributor  to  Atlantic  Monthly, 
Harpers,  Scribners,  and  other  magazines. 

CxniRAN,  Henry  Hastings.  Born  1877,  New  York  City.  B.A.,  Yale. 
1898;  LL.B.,  New  York  Law  School,  1900.  For  a  number  of  years 
newspaper  reporter  and  editor  in  New  York.  Member  of  the  New  York 
Board  of  Aldermen  since  1911.  Was  Chairman  of  the  Board  of  Alder- 
men's Committee  which  investigated  the  Police  Department  in  1912-1913. 
At  present  Chairman  of  the  Board's  Committee  on  Finance,  and  Majority 
Leader  in  the  Board  of  Aldermen. 

Dana,  Charles  Anderson.  Born  1819,  Hinsdale,  N.  H.  Died  1897. 
Educated  at  Harvard.  Member  of  Brook  Farm.  Was  on  the  staff  of 
the  New  York  Tribune  as  correspondent,  and  later  as  managing  editor. 
Special  agent  of  the  War  Department  under  Secretary  Stanton.  Editor 
and  part  owner  of  the  New  York  Sun  from  1868  till  his  death.  Author 
of :  The  Art  of  Newspaper  Making,  Reminiscences  of  the  Civil  War,  and 
other  works ;  but  best  known  for  his  articles  and  editorials  in  The  Sun. 

Flandrau,  Charles  Macomb.  Born  1871,  St.  Paul,  Minn.  B.A., 
Harvard,  1895.  Author  of:  Harvard  Episodes,  a  volume  of  college 
short  stories;  The  Diary  of  a  Freshman,  Viva  Mexico,  Prejudices, 
and  of  other  stories  and  essays. 

Galsworthy,  John.  Born  1867,  Coombe,  Surrey,  England.  Edu- 
cated at  Harrow,  and  at  New  College,  Oxford.  Was  called  to  the  bar 
in  1890,  but  soon  turned  to  literature  as  a  profession.  Author  of :  Jocelyn, 
Fraternity,  The  Patrician,  The  Dark  Flower,  and  other  novels  ;  also  poems 
and  essays,  among  them  Songs  and  Doggerels,  and  The  Inn  of  Tranquil- 
lity. Much  of  his  later  work  has  been  in  the  form  of  plays  —  The  Silver 
Box,  Strife,  The  Fugitive,  and  others. 

Harrison,  Frederic.  Born  1831,  London.  Honorary  D.C.L., 
Oxford;  Litt.  D.,  Cambridge;  LL.D.,  Aberdeen.  Author  and  editor. 
Among  his  publications  are:  The  Meaning  of  History,  Order  and 
Progress,  Victorian  Literature,  American  Addresses,  Memories  and 
Thoughts,  The  Philosophy  of  Common  Sense,  and  other  historical  and 
general  works. 

Lang,  Andrew.  Born  1844,  Selkirk,  Scotland.  Died  1912.  Edu- 
cated at  St.  Andrews  University,  and  at  Balliol  College,  Oxford.  Poet, 
journalist,  critic,  historian,  and  Homeric  scholar.  Among  his  publica- 
tions are :  Ballades  in  Blue  China,  Grass  of  Parnassus,  Collected  Rhymes, 


446  MODERN  ESSAYS 

Homer  and  the  Epic,  The  Homeric  Hymns,  Homer  and  His  Age.  He 
was  also  the  author  of  works  on  folk-lore,  primitive  religions,  and  English 
and  Scotch  history. 

Leacock,  Stephen.  Born  1869,  in  England.  Educated  in  Canada 
and  the  United  States.  Head  of  the  Department  of  Political  Science  at 
McGill  University.  Author  of :  Sunshine  Sketches,  Nonsense  Novels, 
Behind  the  Beyond,  etc.,  also  of  works  on  political  economy. 

Lodge,  Henry  Cabot.  Born  1850,  Boston,  Mass.  B.A.,  Harvard, 
1871,  LL.B.,  1874.  Has  held  various  public  positions  in  his  state  and 
in  the  nation.  Senator  from  Massachusetts  since  1893.  Author  and 
editor  of  works  on  American  history  and  politics,  such  as  The  Life  of 
Washington,  History  of  Boston,  Story  of  the  Revolution,  A  Frontier 
Town  and  Other  Essays,  etc. 

Lodge,  Sir  Oliver  Joseph.  Born  1851,  Penkhull,  Staffordshire, 
England.  D.Sc,  London;  D.Sc.  (Hon.)  Oxford,  Cambridge,  Victoria, 
and  Liverpool;  LL.D.,  St.  Andrews,  Glasgow,  and  Aberdeen.  Fellow 
of  the  Royal  Society.     Principal  of  the  University  of  Birmingham  since 

1900.  Scientist,  and  author  of  works  on  Physics  and  related  subjects. 
Author  of :  Modern  Views  of  Electricity,  Mathematics  for  Parents  and 
Teachers,  The  Substance  of  Faith,  Man  and  the  Universe,  Parent  and 
Child,  Modern  Problems,  etc. 

Lubbock,  Sir  John  (see  Avebury). 

Lynn,  Margaret.  Born  and  reared  in  northern  Missouri.  B.S., 
Tarkio  College,  1889 ;  M.A.,  University  of  Nebraska,  1900.  Taught  at 
the  University  of  Nebraska,  and  at  the   University   of  Kansas,  since 

1901.  Associate  Professor  of  English  Literature  at  the  University  of 
Kansas.  Author  of  A  Stepdaughter  of  the  Prairie,  and  other  western 
sketches,  and  contributor  to  the  magazines. 

More,  Paul  Elmer.  Born  1864,  St.  Louis,  Mo.  BA.,  Washington 
University,  1887,  M.A.,  1892;  M.A.,  Harvard,  1893;  LL.D.,  Washing- 
ton University,  1913.  Formerly  instructor  at  Harvard  and  Bryn  Mawr, 
and  literary  editor  of  the  Independent.  Editor  of  the  New  York  Evening 
Post  since  1903,  and  of  the  Nation  from  1909  to  1914.  Member  of  the 
National  Institute  of  Arts  and  Letters.  Author  of  poems  and  transla- 
tions. Has  published  eight  volumes  of  critical  and  general  essays  under 
.the  title  The  Shelburne  Essays. 

Phelps,  William  Lyon.  Born  1865,  New  Haven,  Conn.  B.A., 
Yale,  1887;  M.A.,  Harvard,  1891;  Ph.D.,  Yale,  1891.  Professor  of 
English  Literature  in  Yale  College.  Member  of  the  National  Institute 
of  Arts  and  Letters,  contributor  to  the  magazines  on  literary  topics. 


BIOGRAPHICAL  INDEX  447 

and  public  lecturer  on  literature.  Editor  of  numerous  English  classics ; 
author  of :  The  Beginnings  of  the  English  Romantic  Movement,  Essays 
on  Modern  Novelists,  Teaching  in  School  and  College,  Essays  on  Russian 
Novelists,  Essays  on  Books,  etc. 

Rhodes,  James  Ford.  Born  1848,  Cleveland,  Ohio.  Educated 
at  New  York  University,  and  University  of  Chicago.  LL.D.,  Har- 
vard, Yale,  and  Princeton ;  Litt.D.,  Oxford.  Lecturer  at  Oxford  on 
the  American  Civil  War,  1913.  Author  of  History  of  the  United  States 
from  the  Compromise  of  1850,  also  of  Historical  Essays.  President  of 
the  American  Historical  Association,  1899.  Corresponding  Fellow  of 
the  British  Academy.  Member  of  the  American  Academy  of  Arts 
and  Letters,  and  of  other  societies. 

Sumner,  William  Graham.  Born  1840,  Paterson,  N.J.  Died 
1910.  B.A.,  Yale,  1863,  LL.D.,  1909.  Professor  of  Political  Economy 
and  of  Sociology  at  Yale.  Author  of :  History  of  American  Currency, 
Lectures  on  the  History  of  Protection  in  the  United  States,  What  Social 
Classes  Owe  to  Each  Other,  Protectionism,  Folkways,  etc. ;  also  of : 
War  and  Other  Essays,  Earth  Hunger  and  Other  Essays,  The  Challenge 
of  Facts  and  Other  Essays,  volumes  published  since  his  death. 

Taft,  William  Howard.  Born  1857,  Cincinnati,  Ohio.  B.A.,  Yale, 
1878;  LL.B.,  University  of  Cincinnati,  1880.  Jurist  and  statesman; 
twenty-seventh  President  of  the  United  States.  Professor  of  Constitu- 
tional Law  in  Yale  University  since  1913.  Author  of:  Political  Issues 
and  Outlooks,  Present  Day  Problems,  The  United  States  and  Peace,  and 
other  essays  and  addresses  on  politics  and  government. 

TiNGFANG,  Wu.  Eminent  Chinese  statesman  and  diplomat.  For- 
merly Minister  to  Peru,  Spain,  and  later  to  the  United  States.  More 
recently  Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs,  and  Minister  of  Justice  for  the 
Provincial  Government  of  the  Republic  of  China.     Lecturer  and  essayist. 

Whistler,  James  Abbott  McNeill.  Born  1834,  Lowell,  Mass. 
Died  1903.  Artist  and  lecturer  on  art.  His  etchings  first  brought  him 
to  notice  while  he  was  an  art  student  in  Paris.  Did  similar  work  in 
England.  His  work  very  distinctive  and  original.  The  portraits  of 
his  mother  and  of  Carlyle,  and  his  Nocturnes  are  among  his  best-known 
paintings.  The  Gentle  Art  of  Making  Enemies  is  the  book  in  which  he 
explains  his  theory  of  art,  and  replies  to  some  of  his  critics,  notably 
John  Ruskin. 

Wilson,  Woodrow.  Born  1856,  Staunton,  Va.  B.A.,  Princeton, 
1879;  LL.B.,  University  of  Virginia,  1881;  Ph.D.,  Johns  Hopkins, 
1886.     Formerly  Professor  of  Political  Economy  and  Jurisprudence  and 


448  MODERN  ESSAYS 

later  president  of  Princeton  University.  Governor  of  New  Jersey; 
twenty-eighth  President  of  the  United  States.  Author  of :  Constitutional 
Government  in  the  United  States,  A  History  of  the  American  People, 
Division  and  Reunion,  Mere  Literature,  and  other  volumes  of  history 
and  essays. 

WooDBERRY,  George  Edward.  Bom  1855,  Beverly,  Mass.  B.A., 
Harvard,  1877.  Various  honorary  degrees.  Professor  of  English  at 
the  University  of  Nebraska,  and  of  Comparative  Literature  at  Columbia. 
Fellow  of  the  American  Academy  of  Arts  and  Sciences,  Member  of  the 
American  Academy  of  Arts  and  Letters.  Editor  of  English  classics ; 
biographer  of  Poe,  Hawthorne,  Emerson,  and  others ;  author  of  poems, 
essays,  and  critical  works. 


Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America. 


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